[drupal-docs] generating Drupal Handbook pdf's manually

[Charlie Lowe]

I've mentioned this before, but not to such a large group interested in 
producing documentation. Since Anisa and Dries mentioned pdf's, perhaps 
it's time to mention it again. It's possible to do it manually and very 
easily in about ten-fifteen minutes using OpenOffice:

http://cyberdash.com/temp/drupal_handbook.pdf

Steps:

1) Save print friendly version HTML page.
2) Open print friendly version HTML page in OO HTML document editor.
3) Open OO Writer. Copy all from HTML document editor into Writer. 
Heading tags and some other formatting is preserved.
4) Create table of contents using Insert->Indexes and Tables->Indexes 
and Tables
5) Create title page
6) Adjust format of heading tags, etc. using OO Stylist feature.
7) Generate pdf.

Now, the process becomes more automated if an existing document has some 
formatting already done. For example, I opened another document in 
Writer that I had with the same style header/page styling you see in 
this pdf. That was preserved when I copy and pasted into Writer. So with 
a little bit of work, a base template could be created to automatically 
style some of the text. Some of the styling is also coming from the 
original HTML doc. So some work there on the printer-friendly version 
could result in a better looking text as well.

Complications:

- I haven't got the character set correct. I'm assuming that this is 
possible with OO.
- Tables and some other formatting/layout choices in the original 
handbook version aren't formatting well.
- Better styling consistency in the handbook would of course make the 
final product look better.

Advantage:

- It's possible to do this at the point of a new official release and in 
subsequent releases if the handbook is ready to go. The pdf could be 
included either for download on drupal.org or in drupal core.
- It's possible to produce a publishable, formatted version very easily 
without worrying about docbook or latex. Just requires some smart HTML 
formatting and consistency.
- The OO Writer version (.sxw) could also be made available for download 
for anyone to reformat and rework for particular print-based needs.