Version 5.8.0

# speedata Publisher Documentation

Automatically generate PDF files from XML data — with programmable layouts, typographic quality, and full control over every detail.

The Publisher reads two XML files — the data and the layout rules — and turns them into a PDF. Once it is installed, three commands take you to your first PDF:

    sp new helloworld   # create a sample project with a data and a layout file
    cd helloworld
    sp                  # generate the PDF — the result is called publisher.pdf

The chapter Hello, world! explains step by step how the two files work together.

## Getting Started

Introduction
What the Publisher can do and what it's used for
Hello, world!
From zero to PDF in three commands
Installation & Setup
Installation, XML editor, and schema validation

## Topics

Basics
Grid, page types, positioning, and data processing
Text & Fonts
Text formatting, font loading, and hyphenation
Images & Graphics
Include, scale, and position images
Tables
Flexible tables with the HTML-like model
Page Layout
Groups, virtual pages, and crop marks
Colors
Define and use colors

## Advanced

Web Formats
Use HTML, CSS, and Markdown in the Publisher
Directories & Indices
Table of contents, index, bookmarks, and markers
Integration
Lua filters, server mode, SaaS API, and accessibility
Quality & Debugging
Troubleshooting, performance, and quality assurance

## How-to guides

How-to guides
Task-oriented recipes with decision knowledge
Data preparation
Transform up front or process in the layout?
Table, groups or text flow?
The central presentation decision
Table with automatic breaking
Article list with a repeating table head
Controlling column widths
Fixed widths, star widths and mixed forms
Continuation head and note
Varying head and foot per page
Breaking tables manually
Portioning and measuring for custom break logic
Basic structure of a data sheet
Page type with head, foot and type area
Table of contents
Collecting page numbers, output in the next run
Keyword index
Sorting and grouping with Makeindex

## Reference

Command Reference
All commands and attributes at a glance
XPath & Layout Functions
XPath expressions and sd: functions
Command Line
All sp options in detail
Configuration
Configuration file and environment variables
Glossary
Terms and definitions
Appendix
Defaults, file names, internal variables

#### On this page