Output to Postscript

[rww]

Outputting to Postscript- shouldn't be a hard thing to do. According to the manual it should be part of the commonly available transformation formats, along with PDF, TXT, etc. But can I heckers like find it. I can only get a PS option when I create a New transformation, but then I have no idea what the other params are I need to specify to make it work. Tried a few and just kept getting failures.

Would appreciate some pointers from someone who's managed it.

Thanks

Rich

[adrian]

Hi,

This does depend somewhat on the type of XML document that you want to transform and the XSLT stylesheets and scenarios available for that document type. While Oxygen doesn't provide out-of-the-box transformation scenarios for Postscript output, you can usually duplicate a scenario for PDF output and change in the FO Processor tab the output format to ps (instead of pdf). You will also have to change the extension of the output file to .ps.

What type of XML document (DITA, DocBook, TEI, custom) do you want to publish to Postscript?

Regards,
Adrian

[rww]

you can usually duplicate a scenario for PDF output and change in the FO Processor tab the output format to ps (instead of pdf). You will also have to change the extension of the output file to .ps.

Sorry, I don't see an option for outputting to postscript if I duplicate a transformation. I only get FO processor options if I create a New transformation. Creating a new transformations leaves me with settings to enter that I have no clue about, particularly the XSLT input box.

[adrian]

Hi,

What type of XML document do you want to publish to Postscript?
Do you already have available a transformation scenario for this document that publishes to PDF?

If you're starting from scratch with a custom XML document (not a common type like DITA, DocBook, etc), you'll have to develop an XSLT stylesheet that outputs FO. This can then be processed with Apache FOP into PDF or Postscript.

Regards,
Adrian

[rww]

I'm working in DITA. No, I don't have a transformation scenario - I'm just using the scenario that comes with the built-in 'DITA Map PDF' transformation. Although, I did follow the example of adding an image to the front page from here http://www.oxygenxml.com/doc/ug-oxygen/ ... ation.html, but I don't think that's what you mean.

[adrian]

For DITA things are different because it's not a simple XSLT transformation, it's an ANT script for the DITA Open Toolkit (DITA-OT) that in turn performs multiple operations/transformations. So, in this case you have to tell DITA-OT that you want a Postscript output format.

Duplicate the built-in DITA Map PDF transformation scenario, give it a proper name (e.g. DITA Map Postscript) and in the Parameters tab add a new parameter named fop.formatter.output-format with the value application/postscript. This should already get you going.

You might also want to adjust the fields from Output tab to differentiate it from the PDF transformation:
Temporary files directory: ${cfd}/temp/ps
Output folder: ${cfd}/out/ps
Enable the radio Open in Browser/System Application, if you have a preview tool associated with the .ps file extension.
Select the Other location radio and use the value: ${cfd}/out/ps/${cfn}.ps

Regards,
Adrian

[rww]

Thanks I can now successfully create Postscript files and pass them through ghostscript to create PDFs. Unfortunately there's no bookmarks present in the final PDF. I tried using the dDOPDFMARKS parameter in ghostscript but it had no effect. Anyone else managed it?