TeXFOTBuilder: a Generic TeX backend for Jade

By David Megginson, Sebastian Rahtz and Kathleen Marszalek

Introduction

The TeXFOTBuilder was initially written by David Megginson, but is now maintained by Sebastian Rahtz. In a development sponsored by Novare International (to whom many thanks!), Kathleen Marszalek drastically improved the table support.

The job of the backend is to map DSSSL flow-objects into generic TeX macro calls. Atomic flow objects appear as single \insertOBJECT{} macro calls, while non-atomic flow objects appear as nested pairs of \OBJECT{}..\endOBJECT{} macro calls.

The \insertOBJECT and \OBJECT calls receive a single argument, which is a list of definitions for inherited and non-inherited characteristics (see below). For example, the following DSSSL handler:

(element P
  (make paragraph
	start-indent: 6pt))

would generate the following TeX calls:

\startPar{\def\StartIndent{6pt}}%
CONTENTS
\endPar{}

It is important to note that any characters with values >255 will appear as \Character{value} macro calls ie.

\Character{1024}

In addition to nearly all of the flow-object classes currently supported by Jade, the TeXFOTBuilder generates two pseudo flow-object macro calls:

These are guaranteed to appear at the very beginning and very end of the .tex output file, and give your macros a chance to grab control at both points. The argument to \FOT is the version of the TeX markup generated by the Jade backend (currently 2). Macro packages should check this for compatibility.

The output .tex file is not ready to be passed directly through TeX or LaTeX -- instead, it is necessary to have TeX macro definitions for all of the flow-object macros, and to set default values for the characteristics. The macros can use of TeX primitives, plain TeX, LaTeX, or any other format which is convenient.

A LaTeX macro package for use with the output of this backend has been developed by Sebastian Rahtz. The current stable release can be found on CTAN in macros/jadetex; experimental releases will be placed at http://www.tug.org/applications/jadetex/ at intervals.

Characteristics

The SETTINGS argument to the flow-object macros will contain a series of \def statements for both inherited and non-inherited characteristics. These will appear only when the characteristic's value differs from the standard default (in the case of non-inherited characteristics) or from the current value (in the case of inherited characteristics). Since these statements appear as an argument, they will not take effect until you reference the parameter explicitly.

Inherited Characteristics

The characteristics in the following table are inherited -- you should set these to their default values only once, at the beginning of the parse (but they should always revert to their previous values after a flow-object has finished):

Characteristic Default Value DSSSL Equivalent Used By
\AsisWrapIndent 0 [#f]
\BackgroundColor 0 [#f]
\BackgroundLayer -1
\BackgroundTile 0 [#f]
\BorderAlignment center
\BorderOmitAtBreak 0 [#f]
\BorderPresent 1 [true]
\BorderPriority 0
\BottomMargin 0pt
\BoxBorderAlignment outside
\BoxCornerRadius 0pt [note]
\BoxOpenEnd 0 [#f]
\BoxSizeAfter 4pt
\BoxSizeBefore 8pt
\BoxType border
\CellAfterColumnMargin 0pt
\CellAfterRowMargin 0pt
\CellBackground 0 [#f]
\CellBeforeColumnMargin 0pt
\CellBeforeRowMargin 0pt
\CellCrossed 0 [#f]
\CellRowAlignment start
\Color current gray
\Country 0 [#f]
\DisplayAlignment start
\EndIndent 0pt
\EndMargin 0pt
\ExpandTabs 8
\FieldAlign start
\FieldWidth 0pt
\FillingDirection top-to-bottom
\FirstLineStartIndent 0pt
\FloatOutLineNumbers 0 [#f]
\FloatOutMarginalia 0 [#f]
\FloatOutSidelines 0 [#f]
\FontFamilyName iso-serif
\FontName 0 [#f]
\FontPosture upright
\FontProportionateWidth medium
\FontSize 10pt
\FontStructure solid
\FontWeight medium
\FooterMargin 0pt
\GlyphAlignmentMode font
\GlyphReorderMethod ??
\GlyphSubstMethod ??
\HangingPunct 0 [#f]
\HeaderMargin 0pt
\Hyphenate ??
\HyphenationKeep 0 [#f]
\HyphenationLadderCount 0 [#f]
\HyphenationMethod ??
\HyphenationPushCharCount 2
\HyphenationRemainCharCount 2
\IgnoreRecordEnd 0 [#f]
\ImplicitBidiMethod 0 [#f]
\InhibitLineBreaks 0 [#f]
\InputWhitespaceTreatment ??
\JustifyGlyphSpaceMaxAdd 0pt
\JustifyGlyphSpaceMaxRemove 0pt
\Kern ??
\KernMode ??
\Language 0 [#f]
\LastLineEndIndent 0pt
\LastLineJustifyLimit 0pt
\LastLineQuadding relative
\Layer 0
\LeftMargin 0pt
\Ligature ??
\LineBreakingMethod 0 [#f]
\LineCap butt
\LineCompositionMethod 0 [#f]
\LineJoin miter
\LineNumberSep ??
\LineNumberSide ??
\LineRepeat 1
\LineSep 1pt
\LineSpacing 12pt
\LineThickness 1pt
\Lines wrap
\MarginaliaKeepWithPrevious 0 [#f]
\MarginaliaSep 0pt
\MarginaliaSide start
\MathDisplayMode ??
\MinLeaderRepeat 1
\NColumnsSpanned 1
\NRowsSpanned 1
\NumberedLines 1 [true]
\OrphanCount 2
\PageHeight sysdep
\PageWidth sysdep
\PositionPointShift 0pt
\PrincipalModeSimultaneous 0 [#f]
\Quadding start
\RightMargin 0pt
\ScoreSpaces 1 [true]
\SidelineSep required
\SidelineSide required
\Span 1
\SpanWeak 0 [#f]
\StartIndent 0pt
\StartMargin 0pt
\TableAutoWidthMethod 0 [#f]
\TableCornerRadius 0pt [note]
\TablePartOmitMiddleFooter 0 [#f]
\TablePartOmitMiddleHeader 0 [#f]
\TopMargin 0pt
\WidowCount 2
\WritingMode left-to-right

Notes

  1. \BoxCornerRadius combines the box-corner-rounded and box-corner-radius characteristics (its value is 0pt if box-corner-rounded is #f).
  2. \TableCornerRadius combines the table-corner-rounded and table-corner-radius characteristics (its value is 0pt if table-corner-rounded is #f).

Non-Inherited Characteristics

The characteristics in the following table are not inherited -- you should set these to their default values at the beginning of every relevant flow-object, before evaluating the SETTINGS argument:

Characteristic Default Value DSSSL Equivalent Used By
\AlignLeader 1 [true]
\BreakAfter 0 [#f]
\BreakAfterPriority 0
\BreakBefore 0 [#f]
\BreakBeforePriority 0
\Ch no default
\CoalesceId 0 [#f]
\ColumnIndex contextual column-number [??]
\EntitySystemId required
\EscapementDirection writing-mode
\GlyphId no default
\IdrefAddress ??
\IsDisplay 0 [#f]
\IsDropAfterLineBreak unspecified
\IsDropUnlessBeforeLineBreak unspecified
\IsPunct unspecified
\IsInputTab unspecified
\IsInputWhiteSpace unspecified
\IsRecordEnd unspecified
\IsSpace unspecified
\Keep 0 [#f]
\KeepWithNext 0 [#f]
\KeepWithPrevious 0 [#f]
\Length context
\MathClass unspecified
\MathFontPosture unspecified
\MaxHeight contextual
\MaxWidth contextual
\MayViolateKeepAfter 0 [#f]
\MayViolateKeepBefore 0 [#f]
\NotationSystemId required
\Orientation required
\PositionPointX ??
\PositionPointY ??
\PositionPreference 0 [#f] position-preference
\ScaleType maxuniform scale [note]
\ScaleX n/a scale [note]
\ScaleY n/a scale [note]
\ScoreLength ??
\ScoreType required type
\Script unspecified
\SpaceAfterConditional 0 [#f] space-after
\SpaceAfterForce 0 [#f] space-after
\SpaceAfterMax 0pt space-after
\SpaceAfterMaxFactor 0 space-after
\SpaceAfterMin 0pt space-after
\SpaceAfterMinFactor 0 space-after
\SpaceAfterNominal 0pt space-after
\SpaceAfterNominalFactor 0 space-after
\SpaceAfterPriority 0 space-after
\SpaceBeforeConditional 0 [#f] space-before
\SpaceBeforeForce 0 [#f] space-before
\SpaceBeforeMax 0pt space-before
\SpaceBeforeMaxFactor 0 space-before
\SpaceBeforeMin 0pt space-before
\SpaceBeforeMinFactor 0 space-before
\SpaceBeforeNominal 0pt space-before
\SpaceBeforeNominalFactor 0 space-before
\SpaceBeforePriority 0 space-before
\StretchFactor 0
\TableWidth contextual
\TruncateLeader 0 [#f]
\Width required [note]

Notes

  1. ScaleType, ScaleX, and ScaleY are all the equivalent of the scale characteristic: if ScaleType is 0 [#f], then ScaleX and ScaleY become relevant.
  2. The Width characteristic is not required if table-auto-width feature is present.
Sebastian Rahtz, s.rahtz@elsevier.co.uk