PDF processing modules

The PDF (formerly known as PDF2) transformation process runs the pre-processing routine and follows it by a series of additional targets. These steps work together to create a merged set of content, convert the merged content to XSL-FO, and then format the XSL-FO file to PDF.

The PDF process includes many Ant targets. During a typical conversion from map to PDF, the following targets are most significant.

map2pdf2

Creates a merged file by calling a common Java merge module. It then calls the publish.map.pdf target to do the remainder of the work.

publish.map.pdf

Performs some initialization and then calls the transform.topic2pdf target to do the remainder of processing.

transform.topic2pdf

Converts the merged file to XSL-FO, generates the PDF, and deletes the topic.fo file, unless instructed to keep it. Uses the following targets to perform those tasks:

transform.topic2fo

Convert the merged file to an XSL-FO file. This process is composed of several Ant targets.

Ant target	Description
transform.topic2fo.index	Runs a Java process to set up index processing, based on the document language. This step generates the file stage1.xml in the temporary processing directory.
transform.topic2fo.flagging	Sets up preprocessing for flagging based on a DITAVAL file. This step generates the file stage1a.xml in the temporary processing directory.
transform.topic2fo.main	Does the bulk of the conversion from DITA to XSL-FO. It runs the XSLT based process that creates stage2.fo in the temporary processing directory
transform.topic2fo.i18n	Does additional localization processing on the FO file; it runs a Java process that converts stage2.fo into stage3.fo, followed by an XSLT process that converts stage3.fo into topic.fo.

transform.fo2pdf

Converts the topic.fo file into PDF using the specified FO processor (Antenna House, XEP, or Apache FOP).

delete.fo2pdf.topic.fo

Deletes the topic.fo file, unless otherwise specified by setting an Ant property or command-line option.