Re: [xsl] FO Processor choice

[Kobayashi <koba@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Andrew,

At first you should make your needs for FO-processor clear.

 Do you wish to make complicated layout or simple form?
 How many pages do you need to format at one time? 
 Which language are you going to use?
 What kind of graphics do you use?
 Which kind of environment do you use the processor?
 Which font do you use?
 Do you wish to print to paper?

FOP may do some basic job, but it is not able to format
variety of complicated layout. And it has some limitations 
such as font handling, large volume page and mis-implimentation
of XSL-FO spec, etc.

As for the cost, there is no difference between free or commertial
software. The difference is only who payes for the compensasion.
Will you will pay for it, or will some other person pay for it?
>From the view of GOD, there is no difference.

Best regards,



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Firstly, I don't want to ask 'which is the best FO processor', so its ok
to read on :)

Ive recently set about converting a set of xhtml producing stylesheets
to produce pdf.  Ive learnt a bit of FO, using FOP as the processor.

Now I've seen the conformance charts at
http://www.antennahouse.com/xslfo/impl-comparison-fo.htm and I can see
that FOP only implements about 50% of the 'complete' spec (around 67% of
the 'basic' spec).

What I would like to know is that enough to use for development?  Is
there anything missing that rules FOP out as a realistic choice?  The
others are all really expensive, so if its possible to do a task using
FOP - even if its longhand, or requires more work work in xslt - then
that's fine.  Things like margins, text-transform etc can all be done
another way, so is there any need to pay for one of the commercial ones?

What do other regular FO developers use?

Thanks for any insight

andrew 


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Tokushige Kobayashi
Antenna House, Inc.
E-mail koba@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
WWW    http://www.antenna.co.jp/XML/xml-top.htm
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TEL    +81-3-3234-1361(direct call)
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Antenna House XSL School
http://www.antenna.co.jp/XML/school/xslday.htm



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