Apache
FOP 0.93 improves PDF from XML !
13/01/07 05:40 Filed in: Writing
After nearly 3.5 years, the Apache Foundation has
released a stable update to their FOP software. This
is great news for people using this free java program
to convert XML to PDF files. More information and the
download can be found at http://xmlgraphics.apache.org/fop/
Among the many changes and fixes are the
following.
I did have some problems following their instructions to install my own fonts. Here is what I finally did after copying the fonts I wanted to the FOP directory. NOTE, with this release you can skip step one and go straight to step 2 if you are using a TTF font.
Now there is finally a new stable release to export my docbook xml files with. If only they could get the floats feature working. PS, I have a package of tools for working with fop and xml docbook on Windows if anyone is interested.
- support for the use of Open Type fonts
- support for SVG in fo:instream-foreign objects for RTF output
- support for PDF/A-1b and PDF/X-3:2003
- support for kerning
- support for XMP metadata
- lots of bug fixes
- including a complete redesign of the FOP codebase
I did have some problems following their instructions to install my own fonts. Here is what I finally did after copying the fonts I wanted to the FOP directory. NOTE, with this release you can skip step one and go straight to step 2 if you are using a TTF font.
- Correct font conversion process after copying
the font files "something.ttf" to the directory
where FOP is located.
C:\downloads\fop-0.93>java -cp build\fop.jar;lib\avalon-framework-4.2.0.jar; lib\commons-logging-1.0.4.jar; lib\commons-io-1.1.jar org.apache.fop.fonts.apps.TTFReader arial.ttf arial.xml
TTF Reader for Apache FOP 0.93Parsing font...
Reading arial.ttf...
Number of glyphs in font: 1674
3 cmap tables
CMAP format: 4
Creating xml font file...
Creating CID encoded metrics...
Writing xml font file arial.xml...
This font contains no embedding license restrictions.XML font metrics file successfully created. - Uncomment this in the userconfig.xml file in
the fop directory "conf"; if you are using a TTF
font you can also delete the "font metrics-url="
portion for each font as this will be generated
automatically.
<font metrics-url="arial.xml" kerning="yes" embed-url="arial.ttf">
<font-triplet name="Arial" style="normal" weight="normal"/>
<font-triplet name="ArialMT" style="normal" weight="normal"/>
</font>
<font kerning="yes" embed-url="arial.ttf">
<font-triplet name="Arial" style="normal" weight="normal"/>
<font-triplet name="ArialMT" style="normal" weight="normal"/>
</font> - In the fonts.fo file located in the fop directory/examples/fo/basic, wherever you see font-family="Helvetica" change it to font-family="Arial".
- C:\downloads\fop-0.93>fop -c conf/userconfig.xml C:\downloads\fop-0.93\examples\fo\basic\fonts.fo fonts2.pdf
Now there is finally a new stable release to export my docbook xml files with. If only they could get the floats feature working. PS, I have a package of tools for working with fop and xml docbook on Windows if anyone is interested.