Re: Side notes layout in xslt?

Hi,

There is also a complication. Contributors to this list have
offered pointers to solutions using XSLT and XSL-FO, but they have not
stressed addressed the "no cost" context:

- There is only one widely available *free* FO engine (or cake baking
machine), namely Apache FOP.
- For those able to support software development by buying licenses, there
are also FO engines that are more fully-featured and more capable than FOP,
which is free to use, but bare bones
- The "aligning pagination on two parallel texts, one with side notes"
requirement is the kind of thing that is straightforward using a commercial
engine but maybe not quite so easy using the bare-bones FOP. Or it may be
easy, perhaps if you can recast the problem to be easier (as Tony Graham
shows). You have to have done it to know, and it varies by problem. Readers
have already offered hints and tips as to how to go about this one.

So the answer to "can you get a free cake baking machine" is yes, but it
won't be as nice as the one you pay for and the cakes might not be as nice
either, depending on what you need for cake.

Further complication is that XSL-FO is only one option for a 'taxi format':
people are also making print and PDF by other means, even with XSLT.

Regards, Wendell


On Thu, Oct 14, 2021 at 3:53 AM Michael Kay mike@xxxxxxxxxxxx <
xsl-list-service@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>
> *Subject:*  Side notes layout in xslt?
>
>
> Before I start this I'm looking for confirmation this is possible in xslt.
>
>
>
> You're misunderstanding the role of XSLT here. XSLT transforms your XML to
> some other format, such as HTML, XSL-FO, CSS, etc. You could even use it to
> transform directly to PDF if you were prepared to do a lot of work. The
> question is (a) what format are you converting to, and (b) does that format
> support side notes (and if so how). Once you've established that the target
> format supports side-notes, the answer to the question whether you can
> generate the side-notes using XSLT will be "yes".
>
> Your question is a bit like asking whether you can bake a chocolate cake
> using Java. If you have a cake baking machine connected to your computer
> and you know what instructions you need to send it, the answer is yes; if
> you don't, then the answer is no. Your question is really one about cake
> baking machines, not about Java.
>
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