[XSL-LIST Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message]

Re: XSL-FO versus PostScript

Subject: Re: XSL-FO versus PostScript
From: Mulberry Technologies List Owner<xsl-list-owner@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Wed, 26 Feb 2003 19:46:34 -0500
xsl fo vs latex
>Date: Thu, 27 Feb 2003 00:18:24 GMT
>Message-Id: <200302270018.AAA16856@e3000>
>From: David Carlisle <davidc@xxxxxxxxx>
>To: xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>Subject: Re:  XSL-FO versus PostScript
>
>
>
>> In fact, I think packages like
>> LaTeX were a major milestone in the development of semantic markup and
>> therefore in the lineage of XML.
>
>True enough and still there's probably a lot more _documents_ as opposed
>to database output marked up in latex than in XML. (I'm not sure I
>approve of the fact that all references to TeX in this thread have been
>in the past tense:-)
>
>but to return to the original question in the subject line, it is
>comparing apples and oranges. It would be virtually impossible to write
>reasonable postscript from XSLT, you need a typesetter.
>
>Even just printing a simple text string like "hello world"
>needs the typesetter to be able to determine the position of every
>character to specify it to postscript, and to know which characters in
>the font correspond (after ligature processing) to strings of characters
>in the input, to know all the kerns (fine spacing) to place between
>each letters (these are specified in the font metric afm or tfm files,
>so at the very least you'd have to have an xml version of the font
>metrics so xslt can read them. (I just tried this with TeX and it
>kerns between the w and o of world in its default font (cmr)).
>
>And that's just to print hello world, if you start to think about
>writing a float placement and page breaking algorithm in either XSLT or
>Postscript you'll see that neither is an ideal language for the job.
>
>The output of a typesetting engine such as an XSLFO engine is often
>postscript (or pdf) so clearly in some sense you can do anything in PS
>that you could do in FO, but that is like saying why write in
>a high level programming language when clearly it is more powerful
>to write in assembler as anything in the former can be translated to the
>latter.
>
>David
>(LaTeX maintainer in a parallel life)



 XSL-List info and archive:  http://www.mulberrytech.com/xsl/xsl-list


Current Thread

PURCHASE STYLUS STUDIO ONLINE TODAY!

Purchasing Stylus Studio from our online shop is Easy, Secure and Value Priced!

Buy Stylus Studio Now

Download The World's Best XML IDE!

Accelerate XML development with our award-winning XML IDE - Download a free trial today!

Don't miss another message! Subscribe to this list today.
Email
First Name
Last Name
Company
Subscribe in XML format
RSS 2.0
Atom 0.3
Site Map | Privacy Policy | Terms of Use | Trademarks
Free Stylus Studio XML Training:
W3C Member
Stylus Studio® and DataDirect XQuery ™are products from DataDirect Technologies, is a registered trademark of Progress Software Corporation, in the U.S. and other countries. © 2004-2013 All Rights Reserved.