Passepartout Frequently Asked Questions

What does Passepartout mean?

An early draft name for Passepartout was Framer since it deals with frames. (We like FrameMaker a lot, not that it has much in common with Passepartout.) This was a very dull name, so we changed it. A passepartout is a kind of cardboard frame you put around watercolour paintings.

How do I pronounce Passepartout?

Like pus par two. Use a rolled French R if you like. The important thing is not pronouncing it like trout.

Are you guys French?

Non. I mean no.

Is there a public repository?

Yes there is. Run the following command to check out a fresh copy: svn checkout http://svn.gnome.org/svn/passepartout/trunk passepartout

Note that you will have to build your own configure script using autogen.sh; see DEVNOTES for details.

I have a problem with libxml++

Passepartout 0.4 and later uses the stable libxml++ 1.0 API. Versions prior to 0.4 will only be guaranteed to build with exactly the version or versions of libxml++ that are specified in the INSTALL file. No version have yet been built against the libxml++ 2.6 branch.

Configure says libxml++ is unknown to pkg-config

Pkg-config can't find libxml++, because it doesn't know where to look. Try adding the path to the file libxml++-1.0.pc to the environment variable PKG_CONFIG_PATH. If libxml++ is installed in /usr/local/ then the path is /usr/local/lib/pkgconfig/.

How do I edit text in Passepartout?

You don't. You write the text in XML format in your favourite text editor, then you import the text into Passepartout. Read the User's Guide for more detailed instructions.

If I import text into Passepartout, does that mean I can't change it afterwards?

Not at all. Text is only imported by reference. If you edit and save changes to the XML file, Passepartout will notice the change and update the display.

Does Passepartout support colored text?

Not yet. Is does support grayscale text though. The <font> and <para> elements accept the gray attribute which can be a number between 0.0 and 1.0.

Can I print documents from the command line?

Not now, but in the future, we hope to make it possible to run Passepartout from a script.

Can I use xml2ps as a stand-alone typesetter?

Yes. Regrettably, xml2ps is poorly documented. The command xml2ps -p 400x600 -p 200x500 < foo.xml > foo.ps prints the content of foo.xml on two pages (400 x 600 and 200 x 500 points respectively) and saves the result in foo.ps. The file foo.xml must be in the xml2ps DTD. If you want to use another DTD, you will have to filter it through a stylesheet with xsltproc.

xml2ps does not support images.

Is there no TrueType support?

Yes there is, as of version 0.6.