I'm not as savvy as you folks, but having done some work with XML workflows in
STM publishing, I see several factors that keep publishers from getting behind
either FO or CSS solutions.
First is an attachment to nearly un-automatable print-legacy layout: pages that
have four or five elements that need to grow or shrink in relation to each
other, 3-column ragged right pages in a journal with equations, all sorts of
content that needs to go into footers and margins, footnotes that start on page
1 but, if too long, may continue in a space above the references. By the time
you mention multi-pass processing, people have left the room.
Second is lack of an easily editable intermediate format, both for problem
solving and for tweaking. Someone with a few hours of experience in InDesign
can break an equation or move a figure from page 3 to page 2, and they can do
it in a few minutes. Solving the same problems in automated systems is more
difficult and requires a rarer skill set.
Third is the variability of input, which others have already mentioned, and how
it interacts with the first two issues.
That said, I've seen some dirt-simple layouts that still use 3B2 (or whatever
it's called now). My impression is that publishers don't want to give up the
safety net that cheap offshore typesetting gives them.
-Charles
*****************************************
From: Michael Kay mike(_at_)saxonica(_dot_)com
[mailto:xsl-list-service(_at_)lists(_dot_)mulberrytech(_dot_)com]
Sent: Thursday, January 18, 2018 2:02 PM
To: xsl-list(_at_)lists(_dot_)mulberrytech(_dot_)com
Subject: Re: [xsl] Prince XML vs Docbook
On 18 Jan 2018, at 17:06, Eliot Kimber mailto:ekimber(_at_)contrext(_dot_)com
<mailto:xsl-list-service(_at_)lists(_dot_)mulberrytech(_dot_)com> wrote:
There’s no inherent reason CSS pagination has to be mediocre.
My observation is it’s another case of simply not having enough resources
available to get the work done.
I think you've just given the inherent reason. Getting the resources to do a
high quality job for people with high-end requirements requires significant
investment. Getting the resources to do a mediocre job (by which I mean, to
satisfy the needs of those who aren't very fussy) is much easier.
(I wasn't trying to suggest there's any architectural problem with a CSS-based
solution. Just that the economics always favours meeting the 50% of the
requirements that are enough to satisfy 90% of the users, and stopping there.)
Michael Kay
Saxonica
http://www.mulberrytech.com/xsl/xsl-list
-list/2963104 ()
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