When processing the included docbook file, I get this output from
dblatex:

  % dblatex examples/bad-beginpage.xml
  Build the book set list...
  Build the listings...
  XSLT stylesheets DocBook - LaTeX 2e (0.3.4-2)
  ===================================================
  Cannot start a new page at a specific page number
  Build bad-beginpage.pdf
  'bad-beginpage.pdf' successfully built
  %

Note the 'Cannot start a new page at a specific page number' message.
It is casued by the <beginpage> tag with a page number included.
This is the description of <beginpage> in
<URL: http://www.docbook.org/tdg/en/html/beginpage.html >:


  The BeginPage element marks the location of an actual page break in a
  print version of the document, as opposed to where a page break might
  appear in a further rendition of the document. This information may be
  used, for example, to allow support staff using an online system to
  coordinate with a user referring to a page number in a printed manual.

  Processing expectations

  The break identified by BeginPage may be displayed in an online
  version of the document or used for legacy purposes, but it is not
  expected to cause a page break when the document is processed by an
  SGML system.

In my document, I use it to indicate where the page breaks were located
in the original paper version of the document (to make it easier to find
correct section when adding indexterm entries), but this do not seem to
be the way dblatex interpret it.  Please check if dblatex is handling it
wrong.

This is the demo document:

<!DOCTYPE book PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook V4.5//EN"
"http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.5/docbookx.dtd">
<book>
  <bookinfo>
    <title>Example demonstrating dblatex mishandling of beginpage</title>
  </bookinfo>
<preface>
<title>test</title>
<!--
This causes the message 'Cannot start a new page at a specific page
number' to show up, even if the <beginpage> tag is just a marker for a
pagebreak in the original document.
-->
<beginpage pagenum='10'/>
<para>text is good</para>
</preface>
</book>

Petter Reinholdtsen <pere@hungry.com> wrote:

Hi Benoît,

I want to inform you about Debian BTS report #686827 [1] for dblatex,
calling the handling of attribute beginpage@pagenum into question (for
details see [1]):
<snip/>

According to my understanding dblatex interprets the attribute as a
requirement regarding the page number of the following page, thus
dblatex ignores the whole element because this functionality is not
supported.  However the submitter uses the attribute as a mere comment
refering to an "original document".

What about emiting the message 'Cannot start a new page at a specific
page number' as a warning and just falling back to a simple page break
in such a case?

[1] http://bugs.debian.org/686827

Regards, Andreas

Hi Andreas,

What is the intended behaviour expected by Petter? I think there's a
misinterpretation of the role of <beginpage>. In particular it should not
produce a page break, as said in:

http://www.docbook.org/tdg/en/html/beginpage.html

"it is not expected to cause a page break when the document is processed
by an SGML system".

And confirmed by N. Walsh himself:

https://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/docbook/200207/msg00071.html

Just to say that even the dblatex behaviour without @pagenum is wrong, and
that ironically when @pagenum is set it does what is expected, that is
nothing (like Docbook Project FO does).

I suggest to remove everything under this tag, including the warning
message since the tag is useless.

Regards,
BG

ben.guillon <ben.guillon@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi Petter,

what's your opinion on Benoît's proposal?

Regards, Andreas

[Andreas Hoenen]

Hi.

My understanding of the tag is that it is the equivalent of a comment,
stating that "this location had a page break in the original book".
So it should not create a page break, nor change the page number of
the generated file.  I find it slightly useful when adding multipage
indexterm entries based on the index in the paper version of the book
I am working on.