PE Config Question - Lost Graphics

[ptc-3050150]

If I Print Composed to a PDF driver, I get graphics.

If I Compose to a PDF File, I don't - none in any graphic format.

Sound familiar?

And thanks for those with more data on PE and huge docs!

John T. Jarrett
BAE Systems | Arbortext version 5.4 | LOGSA XSL-FO v 1.5

[ClayHelberg]

Hi John-



I think you said in previous messages that you're using XSL-FO, is that
right? Are you using PE to publish?



In that case, the problem may have to do with a special thing you have
to do with XSL-FO composition on PE for graphics. I'll paste a summary I
wrote up in response to a similar question a while back that should
explain things below. This is sketchily documented in the Arbortext help
(see e.g. the help topic for "set pegraphicpi"), but it took me some
experimentation to figure out just how to make it work.



--Clay



PE has a special way of handling graphics, so that Editor can send local
graphic files with the document to the server and the server can do the
right thing with them. This is done using processing instructions, which
FOSI and Styler grok automatically, but which need a little extra work
with XSL-FO. Basically, you have to make sure your XSL-FO stylesheet
copies the PI's from the input to the FO
output in order for PE to be able to find the uploaded graphics and use
them. There will be one PI for each graphic, and it should be copied to
appear *immediately after* the corresponding <fo:external-graphic> in
the output tree.



The good thing about this is that you don't have to worry about graphic
paths at all-if Editor can find the graphics, it will insert all the
necessary info into the _graphic_data PI for you, and upload the actual
graphic when you publish on PE. In fact, when you use this approach, the
contents of the src attribute on <fo:external-graphic> are ignored in
favor of the info in the PI. (But, oddly, even though it's ignored, you
do have to have *some* value for the src attribute-if you just leave it
empty or omit it, the graphic won't appear.)



If you don't use the _graphic_data PI's (by turning the set pegraphicpi
option to "off", or by just not copying them in your XSL-FO stylesheet),
then you do have to worry about getting the path right for the

[ptc-3050150]

Thanks Clay - appreciate the insight.

We are using an XSL-FO (unfortunately).

pegraphicpi on or off doesn't seem to make a difference. Looking at the source code, neither inserts graphic pi's in the document's source. I've even tried it from the server's PE Interactive editor so everything is as local as I could get it. I had "dontCopyGraphics" turned on a while ago, but I turned it back off a month back - and I don't recall if it was copying graphics before that or not.

Is that something I can set in the doctype.dcf to try to force and make sure? Or maybe a map to the drive with the graphics somehow?

Something that may not help is all the graphics are referenced to a mapped drive on the server, but from the server it is just a local directory.

I still can't find the FO output to see what the tag actually looks like. I've got save-temp turned on, have re-routed the temp output to someplace I can get to, but can not find the composed output that actually goes to the PDF.

John T. Jarrett CDT
Tech Writer II, Tech Pubs, ILS, Land & Armaments/Global Tactical Systems

T 832.673.2147 ext 1147 | M 512.736.7031 | -<">mailto:->
BAE Systems, 5000 I-10 West, Sealy, Texas USA 77474
www.baesystems.com

[ClayHelberg]

Hi John-



The trick is to add a template to your stylesheet to copy the PI over
into the output XSL-FO instance. For every place in your stylesheet
where you generate and <fo:external-grapic> element, you also need to
add a line to copy the PI, something like this:



<xsl:template match="graphic">

<fo:external-graphic src="{@fileref}" &quot;="/>

<xsl:copy-of<br/>select="following-sibling::processing-instruction('Pub')[contains(.,'gra
phic_data')][1]"/>

</xsl:template>



Try this approach, with pegraphicpi=on, and see if that fixes you up.



FWIW, this happens because the PI's are added to your source XML when it
is sent to PE for composition, but the XSL-FO rendering adds another
transformation layer. By default, XSL transformations don't copy PI's.
So, if your XSL stylesheet doesn't explicitly copy the PI's from the
source to the FO instance, they disappear.



--Clay