Generating PDF from docbook on Linux (OSS)

My goal was to generate a PDF file from an input docbook file. Sound easy ? Well here are the minimal steps on a lenny/stable system:



$ sudo apt-get install docbook-xsl


and

$ sudo apt-get install -t testing fop libjeuclid-fop-java

You absolutely need fop from testing.

Then to get hyphen working you need to follow instructions from:

http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=526092#20

I used the root solution:

$ cat /etc/fop.conf
FOP_HYPHENATION_PATH=/usr/local/share/java/fop-hyph.jar

and

$ cat ~/.foprc
find_jars jeuclid-core jeuclid-fop

You really need fop from testing otherwise find_jars will not work !

Then I tried on a very simple MathML/docbook example:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE article PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook V4.5//EN"
"http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.5/docbookx.dtd"
[
<!ENTITY % MATHML.prefixed "INCLUDE">
<!ENTITY % MATHML.prefix "mml">
<!ENTITY % equation.content "(alt?, (graphic+|mediaobject+|mml:math))">
<!ENTITY % inlineequation.content
               "(alt?, (inlinegraphic+|inlinemediaobject+|mml:math))">
<!ENTITY % mathml PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD MathML 2.0//EN"
       "http://www.w3.org/Math/DTD/mathml2/mathml2.dtd">
%mathml;
]
>
<article>
 <sect1 id="section_Description">
   <title>Description</title>
     <para>
<equation>
<title>My MathML example</title>
<mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML">
 <mml:mrow>
   <mml:mo>&sum;</mml:mo>
   <mml:mn>4</mml:mn>
   <mml:mo>+</mml:mo>
   <mml:mi>x</mml:mi>
 </mml:mrow>
</mml:math>
</equation>
     </para>
 </sect1>
</article>

Then execute this way:

$ fop -xsl /usr/share/xml/docbook/stylesheet/nwalsh/fo/docbook.xsl -xml math.xml -pdf math.pdf

Here is what it looks like:

Ref:

• http://jeuclid.sourceforge.net/jeuclid-fop/index.html
• https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=479685
  
• http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=440518#42