"xmlto pdf" command fails in TeX/LaTeX step on debian system.

Note: this is not a cross-post.

I posted this to the debian-user mailing list a few days ago
but since I
did not get a single response I thought this might elicit
more interest
in a specialized mailing list, although it is quite likely
caused by
some misconfiguration of the debian system on my part.

I am currently evaluating DocBook as a framework to start
building a
personal documentation system (together with LaTeX and a
couple of
lesser-known products).

I started playing with DocBook over the weekend and while
the "xmlto
html" and "xmlto html-nochunks" commands
worked absolutely fine from the
word go, the generation of pdf (or ps) documents does not
function
correctly.

It looks like I might be missing a LaTeX package or that
LaTeX is not
correctly configured on my system.

I suspect a problem with certain fonts somehow not being
accessible --
although I ran into no such problems while evaluating
LaTeX.

Here is the output of the "xmlto pdf" command.

------------------------------------------------------------
------------
[12:05:42][userturki:~/devel/docbook/tests/xml-dir]$
xmlto pdf cheat.xml

Making portrait pages on letter paper (215.9 mm x 279.4 mm)
This is pdfeTeX, Version 3.14159-1.10b-2.1 (Web2C 7.4.5)
entering extended mode
(./tmp.fo{/usr/share/texmf/pdftex/config/pdftex.cfg}
LaTeX2e <2001/06/01>
Babel <v3.7h> and hyphenation patterns for american,
french, german, ngerman, b
ahasa, basque, catalan, croatian, czech, danish, dutch,
finnish, greek, iceland
ic, irish, italian, latin, magyar, norsk, norsk, portuges,
romanian, russian, s
lovak, slovene, spanish, swedish, turkish, ukrainian,
nohyphenation, loaded.
xmltex version: 2002/06/25 v1.9 (Exp):
(/usr/share/texmf/tex/xmltex/config/xmltex.cfg)
No File: tmp.cfg
(/usr/share/texmf/tex/xmltex/passivetex/fotex.xmt)
(/usr/share/texmf/tex/latex/base/article.cls
Document Class: article 2001/04/21 v1.4e Standard LaTeX
document class
(/usr/share/texmf/tex/latex/base/size10.clo))
(/usr/share/texmf/tex/xmltex/passivetex/fotex.sty
)
No file tmp.aux.
(/usr/share/texmf/tex/latex/cyrillic/t2acmr.fd)
(/usr/share/texmf/tex/latex/base/ts1cmr.fd)
(/usr/share/texmf/tex/latex/psnfss/t1ptm.fd)
No file tmp.out.
No file tmp.out.
INFO: Using normal, i.e. nonfrench-spacing in document
(/usr/share/texmf/tex/latex/psnfss/t1phv.fd)
[1{/var/lib/texmf/dvips/config/pdf
tex.map}]
Overfull vbox (10.0pt too high) has occurred while output
is active [2]
Overfull vbox (10.0pt too high) has occurred while output
is active [3]
(/usr/share/texmf/tex/latex/amsfonts/umsa.fd)
(/usr/share/texmf/tex/latex/amsfonts/umsb.fd)
(/usr/share/texmf/tex/latex/wasysym/uwasy.fd)
(/usr/share/texmf/tex/latex/misc/ustmry.fd) [4] [5]

! LaTeX Error: Something's wrong--perhaps a missing item.

See the LaTeX manual or LaTeX Companion for explanation.
Type  H <return>  for immediate help.
 ...

l.370 ..."
hyphenation-remain-character-count="2">
                                                 
Chapter&#xA0;1.&#xA0;Movem...

?
! Emergency stop.
 ...

l.370 ..."
hyphenation-remain-character-count="2">
                                                 
Chapter&#xA0;1.&#xA0;Movem...

!  ==> Fatal error occurred, the output PDF file is not
finished!
Transcript written on tmp.log.
------------------------------------------------------------
------------

I have found a few similar occurrences via google but
nothing about a
possible cause or solution.

If I break down the generation into two steps,

.. the "xmlto fo cheat.xml" runs successfully.

but then the ensuing ..

.. "xmltex cheat.fo" runs into what appears to be
the same problem.

If tried to hit <enter> a few times and this
eventually causes xmltex to
recover from the error and eventually produce a c. 400 pages
pdf with
empty pages .. "opt opt" near the top of each page
is about all there is
in it.

The test document is an excerpt from my personal vim cheat
sheet and
consists mostly of large tables but I have also tried the
same procedure
on a bare-bones document of the "Hello World" type
and the results are
identical.

So if anyone could advise I would greatly appreciate.

In case this is a known problem with debian sarge, I am
currently
building a next-generation debian etch system on another set
of
partitions.  

If this is a bug that's fixed with the LaTeX setup that
comes with the
newer release I could switch at short notice.

FYI - if anyone on the list is familiar with the way DocBook
is packaged
on debian systems, here is a list of what to the best of my
knowledge
are the relevant packages that are installed on my system.

------------------------------------------------------------
-----------
$ dpkg -l ...

ii  gettext        0.14.4-2       GNU Internationalization
utilities
ii  gettext-base   0.14.1-6       GNU Internationalization
utilities fo
ii  html2text      1.3.2a-2       An advanced HTML to text
converter
ii  jadetex        3.13-6         generator of printable
output from SG
ii  latex-ucs      20041017-1     support for using UTF-8
input encodin
ii  latex-xft-font 0.1-4          Xft-compatible versions of
some LaTeX
ii  latex2html     2002-2-1-10    LaTeX to HTML translator
ii  liblocale-gett 1.01-17        Using libc functions for
internationa
ii  libtext-charwi 0.04-1         get display widths of
characters on t
ii  libtext-iconv- 1.2-3          Convert between character
sets in Per
ii  libtext-wrapi1 0.06-1         internationalized
substitute of Text:
ii  passivetex     1.25-2         Macros to process XSL
formatting obje
ii  preview-latex- 0.8.1+0-3      LaTeX style files for
editor embedded
ii  tetex-base     2.0.2c-3       Basic library files of
teTeX
ii  tetex-bin      2.0.2-23       The teTeX binary files
ii  tetex-doc      2.0.2c-8       The documentation
component of the De
ii  tetex-extra    2.0.2c-3       Additional library files
of teTeX
ii  texinfo        4.7-2.2        Documentation system for
on-line info
ii  textutils      5.2.1-2        The GNU text file
processing utilitie
ii  vim-latexsuite 0.20041219-1   brings the LaTeX power to
Vim
ii  xmltex         1.9-10         TeX package for processing
XML files

ii  docbook        4.3-1          standard SGML
representation system f
ii  docbook-dsssl  1.79-1         modular DocBook DSSSL
stylesheets, fo
ii  docbook-utils  0.6.14-1       Convert Docbook files to
other format
ii  docbook-xml    4.3-1          standard XML documentation
system, fo
ii  docbook-xsl    1.68.1-0.1     stylesheets for processing
DocBook XM
ii  ldp-docbook-ds 0.0.20040321-2 The Linux Documentation
Project's DSS

ii  docbook-xml    4.3-1          standard XML documentation
system, fo
ii  libxml-parser- 2.34-4         Perl module for parsing
XML files
ii  libxml1        1.8.17-10      GNOME XML library
ii  libxml2        2.6.16-2       GNOME XML library
ii  libxml2-utils  2.6.16-7       XML utilities
ii  python2.3-xml  0.8.4-1        XML tools for Python
(2.3.x)
ii  xml-core       0.09           XML infrastructure and XML
catalog fi
ii  xmltex         1.9-10         TeX package for processing
XML files
ii  xmlto          0.0.18-5       XML-to-any converter

(truncated to 72 columns)
------------------------------------------------------------
-----------

In case anyone would like to take a quick look at my test
document, or
try to recreate the problem I have uploaded
"cheat.xml" at:

ht
tp://www.geocities.com/cga9999/docbook/cheat.xml

Thanks,
cga

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cga2000 wrote:

> I started playing with DocBook over the weekend and
while the "xmlto
> html" and "xmlto html-nochunks" commands
worked absolutely fine from the
> word go, the generation of pdf (or ps) documents does
not function
> correctly.
> 
> It looks like I might be missing a LaTeX package or
that LaTeX is not
> correctly configured on my system.

It seems that your xmlto script invokes PassiveTeX which is
incomplete
and unmaintained proof of concept XSL-FO engine built on top
of TeX. You
should use different FO processor, if you need free one than
you can try
FOP 0.93, although I don't have idea how to configure xmlto
to use FOP
instead of PassiveTeX.

-- 
------------------------------------------------------------
------
  Jirka Kosek      e-mail: jirkakosek.cz      http://xmlguru.cz
------------------------------------------------------------
------
       Professional XML consulting and training services
  DocBook customization, custom XSLT/XSL-FO document
processing
------------------------------------------------------------
------
 OASIS DocBook TC member, W3C Invited Expert, ISO/JTC1/SC34
member
------------------------------------------------------------
------
 Want to speak at XML Prague 2007 => http://xmlprague.cz/cfp.
html

On Wed, Feb 28, 2007 at 03:26:19AM EST, Hinrich Aue wrote:
> I don't much about latex with docbook, but I think that
using FOP is the
> better way.
> Did you try FOP?

Yes, this post was already rather verbose so I did not
mention it.

I tried to install the "fop" debian package but
couldn't.  It apparently
requires (some) java .. but the j2re packages are not
"installable" on
my debian sarge system.  I've never quite understood what
the problem is
with java on linux systems but they never seem to get
along.

Thanks much for pointing me in the right direction.

cga

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On Wed, Feb 28, 2007 at 03:31:59AM EST, Jirka Kosek wrote:
> cga2000 wrote:
> 
> > I started playing with DocBook over the weekend
and while the "xmlto
> > html" and "xmlto html-nochunks"
commands worked absolutely fine from the
> > word go, the generation of pdf (or ps) documents
does not function
> > correctly.
> > 
> > It looks like I might be missing a LaTeX package
or that LaTeX is not
> > correctly configured on my system.
> 
> It seems that your xmlto script invokes PassiveTeX
which is incomplete
> and unmaintained proof of concept XSL-FO engine built
on top of TeX. You
> should use different FO processor, if you need free one
than you can try
> FOP 0.93, although I don't have idea how to configure
xmlto to use FOP
> instead of PassiveTeX.

Yes, that might be an issue. 

And obviously, since there is a bit of a learning curve with
DocBook, I
would not want to spend too much time on
installation/implementation
issues. 

I am a little disappointed that DocBook does not run out of
the box on
linux systems.  

Or maybe it is just debian?

Also, as a general remark, I am rather surprised that I seem
to be the
only one posting to this mailing list.  

Thanks,
cga

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'cga2000' a écrit :
> On Wed, Feb 28, 2007 at 03:26:19AM EST, Hinrich Aue
wrote:
>> I don't much about latex with docbook, but I think
that using FOP is the
>> better way.
>> Did you try FOP?
> 
> Yes, this post was already rather verbose so I did not
mention it.
> 
> I tried to install the "fop" debian package
but couldn't.  It apparently
> requires (some) java .. but the j2re packages are not
"installable" on
> my debian sarge system.  I've never quite understood
what the problem is
> with java on linux systems but they never seem to get
along.

Java was not provided with Linux distributions (Debian, at
least) for a
long time because of license issues. This is no longer a
problem now
since the license terms were recently changed. But as Sarge
predates
that change you still have to semi-manually install Java.
Install java-package: it contains a script that will create
a deb
package from a Java .bin archive that you have previously
downloaded
yourself. Then install the created deb package with dpkg and
you have
Java on your system.
If you need further help I suggest you to google
java-package or look
for a Debian mailing list as this is really starting to get
out-of-topic...

And, BTW, you will have much better results if you render
your DocBook
documents into PDF with the latest FOP 0.93 version. There's
no deb
package for it yet, so you'll have to download it from the
FOP [1]
website, but this is easy and there are binary packages if
you don't
want to build it yourself.

HTH,
Vincent

[1] http://xmlgraphics
.apache.org/fop/

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Vincent Hennebert wrote:
> Java was not provided with Linux distributions (Debian,
at least) for a
> long time because of license issues. This is no longer
a problem now
> since the license terms were recently changed.

You're a little premature.  Only part of JDK (or JRE) has
been released
as Free Software so far, though Sun s announced that all of
JDK will
be becomes Free Software (modulo complications with
libraries that
have other copyright holders.)

There is gcj and other Free Java re-implementations that use
the
ClassPath libraries.  Fedora ships that and many Java
applications
built with those tools; I don't know if Debian does.
-- 
	--Per Bothner
perbothner.com   http://per.bothner.com/

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On Thu, Mar 01, 2007 at 03:58:20AM EST, Vincent Hennebert
wrote:
> 'cga2000' a écrit :
> > On Wed, Feb 28, 2007 at 03:26:19AM EST, Hinrich
Aue wrote:
> >> I don't much about latex with docbook, but I
think that using FOP is the
> >> better way.
> >> Did you try FOP?
> > 
> > Yes, this post was already rather verbose so I did
not mention it.
> > 
> > I tried to install the "fop" debian
package but couldn't.  It apparently
> > requires (some) java .. but the j2re packages are
not "installable" on
> > my debian sarge system.  I've never quite
understood what the problem is
> > with java on linux systems but they never seem to
get along.
> 
> Java was not provided with Linux distributions (Debian,
at least) for a
> long time because of license issues. This is no longer
a problem now
> since the license terms were recently changed. But as
Sarge predates
> that change you still have to semi-manually install
Java.
> Install java-package: it contains a script that will
create a deb
> package from a Java .bin archive that you have
previously downloaded
> yourself. Then install the created deb package with
dpkg and you have
> Java on your system.
> If you need further help I suggest you to google
java-package or look
> for a Debian mailing list as this is really starting to
get out-of-topic...
> 
> And, BTW, you will have much better results if you
render your DocBook
> documents into PDF with the latest FOP 0.93 version.
There's no deb
> package for it yet, so you'll have to download it from
the FOP [1]
> website, but this is easy and there are binary packages
if you don't
> want to build it yourself.
> 
> HTH,
> Vincent
> 
> [1] http://xmlgraphics
.apache.org/fop/
> 
>
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On Thu, Mar 01, 2007 at 11:40:17AM EST, Per Bothner wrote:
> Vincent Hennebert wrote:
> >Java was not provided with Linux distributions
(Debian, at least) for a
> >long time because of license issues. This is no
longer a problem now
> >since the license terms were recently changed.
> 
> You're a little premature.  Only part of JDK (or JRE)
has been released
> as Free Software so far, though Sun s announced that
all of JDK will
> be becomes Free Software (modulo complications with
libraries that
> have other copyright holders.)
> 
> There is gcj and other Free Java re-implementations
that use the
> ClassPath libraries.  Fedora ships that and many Java
applications
> built with those tools; I don't know if Debian does.
> -- 
> 	--Per Bothner

Thanks to both.  I am going to check this out on the
almost-stable
debian "etch" asap.  See if I can get FOP to work.
I somehow vaguely
suspected my problem all had to do with restrictions due to
java's
proprietary license terms and debian not going anywhere near
anything
that might "taint" its distributions but things do
become a lot clearer
when you understand the context.

Naturally, I was extremely disappointed when I found out
that while html
transformation worked beautifully and my test document was
perfectly
rendered via a mere "xtmlto html" .. the pdf/ps
transformation just did
not work.  

I do apologize for the OT-ness of this thread and I am all
the more
grateful for your replies.

Thanks,
cga


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On Thu, Mar 01, 2007 at 03:58:20AM EST, Vincent Hennebert
wrote:

[-snip-]
> 
> And, BTW, you will have much better results if you
render your DocBook
> documents into PDF with the latest FOP 0.93 version. 

Much appreciated.  I'll keep that in mind for when my docs
are mature
enough to be "published".  IOW, I'm in the early
stages of my evaluation
of DocBook so if debian "etch" provides a
"lesser" version of FOP that
basically works, I'll be quite happy using that for the time
being. 

> There's no deb package for it yet, so you'll have to
download it from
> the FOP [1] website, but this is easy and there are
binary packages if
> you don't want to build it yourself.

TeX/LaTeX has at least one web site that provides samples of
what can
be achieve .. a "showcase" of its capabilities, I
think they call it.

Is there any place I can take a look at a DocBook
equivalent..  A web
site that might provide samples of html and pdf renderings
of the same
DocBook documents -- with the emphasis on demonstrating the
product's
capabilities rather than discussing the "technical side
of things"..?

Thanks,
cga

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On Wed, Feb 28, 2007 at 12:40:05AM EST, cga2000 wrote:

Just to let you know that I fired up my etch system .. and
installed
everything that looked like it might be relevant to
docbook/xml.

I installed fop, and this pulled in the necessary java
components.

I proceeded to issue the following commands:

$ xmlto fo cheat.xml
$ fop cheat.fo cheat.pdf

This got me a few screenfuls of errors but eventually the
cheat.pdf was
created and it looks reasonably clean.

Thanks much to all.

cga.

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