dblatex

1 Dblatex Manual Page dblatex

dblatex

convert DocBook to LaTeX, DVI, PostScript, and PDF

          dblatex
          options
          {file | -}

## Description

This manual page briefly documents the `dblatex` command. For more details read the PDF manual; see below.

`dblatex` is a program that transforms your SGML/XML DocBook documents to DVI, PostScript or PDF by translating them into pure LaTeX as a first process. MathML 2.0 markups are supported, too. It started as a clone of DB2LaTeX.

## Options

A summary of options is included below. For a complete description, see the PDF manual.

`-h`

`--help`

- Show a help message and exit.

`-b `backend``

`--backend=`backend``

- Backend driver to use: `pdftex` (default), `dvips`, or `xetex`. See also sec-process.

`-B`

`--no-batch`

- All the tex output is printed.

`-c `config``

`-S `config``

`--config=`config``

- Configuration file. A configuration file can be used to group all the options and customizations to apply. See sec-specs.

`-d`

`--debug`

- Debug mode: Keep the temporary directory in which dblatex actually works. sec-debug explains how you can use it.

`-D`

`--dump`

- Dump the error stack when an error occurs (debug purpose).

`-e `indexstyle``

`--indexstyle `indexstyle``

- Index style file to pass to `makeindex` instead of the dblatex default index style.

`-f `figure_format``

`--fig-format=`figure_format``

- Input figure format: `fig`, `eps`. Used when not deduced from figure file extension. See also sec-figconv.

`-F `input_format``

`--input-format=`input_format``

- Input file format: `sgml`, `xml` (default).

`-i `texinputs``

`--texinputs `texinputs``

- Path added to `TEXINPUTS`

`-I `figure_path``

`--fig-path=`figure_path``

- Additional lookup path of the figures. See sec-lookup.

`-l `bst_path``

`--bst-path=`bst_path``

- Additional lookup path of the BibTeX styles. See sec-bibtex.

`-L `bib_path``

`--bib-path=`bib_path``

- Additional lookup path of the BibTeX databases. See sec-bibtex.

`-m `xslt``

`--xslt=`xslt``

- XSLT engine to use. The available engines are: xsltproc (default), 4xslt, saxon.

`-o `output``

`--output=`output``

- Output filename. When not specified, the input filename is used, with the suffix of the output format. The option is ignored if several books are chunked from a set. In this case the `-O` option is applied instead.

`-O `output_dir``

`--output-dir=`output_dir``

- Output directory of the books built from a set. When not specified, the current working directory is used instead. The option is ignored if a single document is outputed, and the `-o` is taken into account.

`-p `xsl_user``

`--xsl-user=`xsl_user``

- An XSL user stylesheet to use. Several user stylesheets can be specified, but the option order is meaningful: a user stylesheet takes precedence over previously defined user stylesheets. See sec-param.

`-P `param`=`value``

`--param=`param`=`value``

- Set an XSL parameter from command line. See sec-param-value.

`-q`

`--quiet`

- Less verbose, showing only TeX output messages and error messages.

`-r plugin:`script``

`--texpost=plugin:`script``

- Script called at the very end of the tex compilation. Its role is to modify the tex file or one of the compilation files before the last round. The `script` can be a python plugin. In this case add the prefix term '`plugin:`'. See sec-texpost.

`-s `latex_style``

`--texstyle=`latex_style``

- Latex style to apply. It can be a package name, or directly a latex package path. A package name must be without a directory path and without the '.sty' extension. On the contrary, a full latex package path can contain a directory path, but must ends with the '.sty' extension. See sec-custom-latex.

`-t `format``

`--type=`format``

- Output format. Available formats: `tex`, `dvi`, `ps`, `pdf` (default).

`--dvi`

- DVI output. Equivalent to `-tdvi`.

`--pdf`

- PDF output. Equivalent to `-tpdf`.

`--ps`

- PostScript output. Equivalent to `-tps`.

`-T `style``

`--style=`style``

- Output style, predefined are: `db2latex`, `simple`, `native` (default). See sec-style.

`-v`

`--version`

- Display the dblatex version.

`-V`

`--verbose`

- Verbose mode, showing the running commands

`-x `xslt_options``

`--xslt-opts=`xslt_options``

- Arguments directly passed to the XSLT engine

`-X`

`--no-external`

- Disable the external text file support. This support is needed for callouts on external files referenced by `textdata` or `imagedata`, but it can be disabled if the document does not contain such callouts. Disabling this support can improve the processing performance for big documents.

## Files and Directories

`$HOME/.dblatex/`

- User configuration directory.

`/etc/dblatex/`

- System-wide configuration directory.

The predefined output styles are located in the installed package directory.

## Environment Variables

`DBLATEX_CONFIG_FILES`

- Extra configuration directories that may contain some dblatex configuration files.

## Examples

To produce `myfile.pdf` from `myfile.xml`:

    dblatex myfile.xml

To set some XSL parameters from the command line:

    dblatex -P latex.babel.language=de myfile.xml

To use your XSL stylesheet:

    dblatex -p myconfig.xsl myfile.xml

To use the db2latex output style:

    dblatex -T db2latex myfile.xml

To apply your own latex style:

    dblatex -s mystyle myfile.xml
    dblatex -s /path/to/mystyle.sty myfile.xml

To pass extra arguments to the XSLT engine:

    dblatex -x "--path /path/to/load/entity" myfile.xml

To use `dblatex` and profiling:

    xsltproc --param profile.attribute "'output'" \
             --param profile.value "'pdf'" \
             /path/to/profiling/profile.xsl \
             myfile.xml | dblatex -o myfile.pdf -

To build a set of books:

    dblatex -O /path/to/chunk/dir -Pset.book.num=all myfile.xml

## See also

The program is documented fully by "DocBook to LaTeX Publishing - User Manual" available in the package's documentation directory.