RE: DITA-OT and FOP

[Jan Tosovsky <j....@email.cz>]

On 2014-03-30 Ron Wheeler wrote:
> On 30/03/2014 5:19 PM, Jan Tosovsky wrote:
> > 
> > I personally think it would be much easier to attract developers 
> > to create a completely new paged media CSS engine than to add 
> > several niche XSL-FO features into FOP. But when mentioning the 
> > new engine, I don't think it is a good idea. Sooner or later 
> > these CSS features will be adopted by major browsers and in that 
> > time it won't be necessary to produce PDFs at all :-)
>
> The supposes that paper documentation will disappear. There are
> regulatory issues, industry practices, etc. that need to change.
> There will still be face to face meetings where someone wants to hand a
> piece of paper to someone for the next few years.

Slightly off-topic, but a short comment...

I didn't mean paper-less way, but http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MHTML way, where all dependencies are embedded in a single file which you can open in a browser (it acts as PDF, but it is HTML/CSS based).

Jan

Re: DITA-OT and FOP

[Ron Wheeler <rw...@artifact-software.com>]

On 01/04/2014 1:33 PM, Jan Tosovsky wrote:
> On 2014-03-30 Ron Wheeler wrote:
>> On 30/03/2014 5:19 PM, Jan Tosovsky wrote:
>>> I personally think it would be much easier to attract developers
>>> to create a completely new paged media CSS engine than to add
>>> several niche XSL-FO features into FOP. But when mentioning the
>>> new engine, I don't think it is a good idea. Sooner or later
>>> these CSS features will be adopted by major browsers and in that
>>> time it won't be necessary to produce PDFs at all :-)
>> The supposes that paper documentation will disappear. There are
>> regulatory issues, industry practices, etc. that need to change.
>> There will still be face to face meetings where someone wants to hand a
>> piece of paper to someone for the next few years.
> Slightly off-topic, but a short comment...
>
> I didn't mean paper-less way, but http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MHTML way, where all dependencies are embedded in a single file which you can open in a browser (it acts as PDF, but it is HTML/CSS based).
>
> Jan
>
>
Good point. PDF is not the only form that moves nicely to paper. Issues 
like signatures and version control are still open issues for me.

DITA is already ahead in this area with a single set of source documents 
being able to be processed into PDF, HTML and other output formats.

My feeling is that bringing this standard XML source document format 
with its editing tools into XMLGraphics will accelerate the development 
of better processes for producing these new formats and put the 
XMLGraphics tools into the mainstream of document production in for 
organizations that want a process that is supported  by standards and a 
strong technical open source organization such as Apache.

Ron

-- 
Ron Wheeler
President
Artifact Software Inc
email: rwheeler@artifact-software.com
skype: ronaldmwheeler
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