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Subject: RE: [docbook-apps] Mathematics and DocBook
Option #3 works for me; but then math isn't the primary content in the documents that I see. The idea of some sort of macro that expands into the proper markup is intriguing. I presume that you want to write and read raw DocBook XML the way that you'd work with LaTeX. IMHO, there are two fundamental issues involved here: - While usually suitable for human consumption, DocBook really is an exchange format. It's widely used as an authoring and storage format, but it was designed as an exchange format. - Simple replacement of text is easy enough with entities. But it won't work as macros. General entities must be well formed, i.e., you can't just break the <inlineequation> gibberish into three parts. You could have a couple of entity references within an entity declaration as placeholders, but you'll only get one shot at redeclaration -- not much good. A quick hack could involve some m4 macro trickery, picking up parameters from a processing instruction. Or maybe a sprinkle of XSLT or DSSSL, depending on your tool chain. That could prove quite useful as a general mechanism, not just for writing math. kind regards Peter Ring -----Original Message----- From: Kevin S. Van Horn [mailto:kvanhorn@ksvanhorn.com] Sent: 4. august 2003 20:01 To: docbook-apps@lists.oasis-open.org Subject: [docbook-apps] Mathematics and DocBook I'm getting ready to write documentation for some mathematical software, and so I've been looking into how to put mathematics into DocBook documents. (I'm new to DocBook.) What I've found so far has been very disheartening, as the options are either inadequate to produce nicely typeset mathematics, or are excruciatingly painful to use. These options are given in Bob Stayton's book, _DocBook XSL: The Complete Guide_: <snip /> 3. DBTeXMath. You can produce nicely typeset math this way, but you still have the problem of excruciatingly verbose input for the simplest thing. For example, just to reference a mathematical variable N I have to write <inlineequation> <inlinemediaobject> <imageobject role="html"> <imagedata fileref="texmath1.png" format="PNG"/> </imageobject> <textobject role="tex"><phrase>$N$</phrase></textobject> </inlinemediaobject> </inlineequation> <snip />
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