FO processors

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FO processors

by Tobias Anstett [k15t.com] :: Rate this Message:

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Hi,

I don't know if this is a little bit off-topic.

We are currently using Apache FOP and like to switch to a processor
that is more powerful (e.g. auto-column size table handling).

Currently I am investigating:
- XSL Formatter (Antenna House)
- XEP (RenderX)

Do you know more processors worth a look? And of course (I know Bob
uses XEP too) have anybody of you experience with one of the above?

--
Cheers,
Tobias


________
K15t Software UG (haftungsbeschränkt), http://www.k15t.com
Rosenbergstr. 58, 70176 Stuttgart, GERMANY
Registration: Stuttgart HRB 729752, VAT ID: DE264753756
Geschäftsführer (CEO): Klaus-Dieter Krüger

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Re: FO processors

by Thomas Schraitle :: Rate this Message:

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Hi Tobias,

On Samstag, 6. Juni 2009, Tobias Anstett [k15t.com] wrote:

>
>
> We are currently using Apache FOP and like to switch to a processor
> that is more powerful (e.g. auto-column size table handling).
>
> Currently I am investigating:
> - XSL Formatter (Antenna House)
> - XEP (RenderX)
>
> Do you know more processors worth a look? And of course (I know Bob
> uses XEP too) have anybody of you experience with one of the above?

Well, my company uses XEP and we like it very much. It does all the things
of the FO specification pretty well and is reasonably fast (although
written in Java).

In the past we've tried Antenna House XSL Formatter (AXF) too. Although it
offers a native Linux port, is faster than XEP, offers more options, but
it was a bit too expensive for us. Unfortunatly, from my observations,
AXF was also not as easy to configure than XEP. Maybe that has changed
now, but it was not as intuitive than XEP.

If you have to render asian languages, AXF seems to make a better job than
XEP. Well, AXF is written by a Japanese company that explains it. AXF
supports SVG and MathML whereas XEP supports only the former.
Unfortunatly, for AXF, you have to pay extra for the SVG and MathML
modules, whereas XEP supports SVG out of the box.


Of course there are other (commercial) formatters than the two above. I
never tried it as most of them run on Windows only. For an overview, find
more information at the DocBook Wiki, section "FO engines"[1].


Hope that helps, :-)
Tom


-------
[1] http://wiki.docbook.org/topic/DocBookPublishingTools

--
Thomas Schraitle

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RE: FO processors

by David Cramer (Tech Pubs) :: Rate this Message:

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We've used XEP for the past eight years or so and have been very happy
with it. We also translate our docs into Japanese. While I'm not
qualified to evaluate the Japanese output, I can say that our
localization vendors have been satisfied with the results. It wouldn't
surprise me if Antenna House's formatter is better at Asian languages
since, as Tom mentioned, it's produced by a Japanese company (for
example, I understand that knowing where to break a line in Japanese is
tricky to do programmatically; perhaps Antenna house does better in that
respect), but certainly XEP can produce acceptable results.

There's a white paper that Eliot Kimber wrote about fo renderers that's
fairly old by now, but perhaps would give you some ideas of what to
consider when comparing them, especially with respect to
internationalization:
http://www.innodata-isogen.com/knowledge_center/white_papers/xslfo_print
_wp (you have to create a free account to download the pdf).

David

-----Original Message-----
From: tom_schr@... [mailto:tom_schr@...]
Sent: Saturday, June 06, 2009 3:38 AM
To: docbook-apps@...
Subject: Re: [docbook-apps] FO processors

Hi Tobias,

On Samstag, 6. Juni 2009, Tobias Anstett [k15t.com] wrote:

>
>
> We are currently using Apache FOP and like to switch to a processor
> that is more powerful (e.g. auto-column size table handling).
>
> Currently I am investigating:
> - XSL Formatter (Antenna House)
> - XEP (RenderX)
>
> Do you know more processors worth a look? And of course (I know Bob
> uses XEP too) have anybody of you experience with one of the above?

Well, my company uses XEP and we like it very much. It does all the
things
of the FO specification pretty well and is reasonably fast (although
written in Java).

In the past we've tried Antenna House XSL Formatter (AXF) too. Although
it
offers a native Linux port, is faster than XEP, offers more options, but

it was a bit too expensive for us. Unfortunatly, from my observations,
AXF was also not as easy to configure than XEP. Maybe that has changed
now, but it was not as intuitive than XEP.

If you have to render asian languages, AXF seems to make a better job
than
XEP. Well, AXF is written by a Japanese company that explains it. AXF
supports SVG and MathML whereas XEP supports only the former.
Unfortunatly, for AXF, you have to pay extra for the SVG and MathML
modules, whereas XEP supports SVG out of the box.


Of course there are other (commercial) formatters than the two above. I
never tried it as most of them run on Windows only. For an overview,
find
more information at the DocBook Wiki, section "FO engines"[1].


Hope that helps, :-)
Tom


-------
[1] http://wiki.docbook.org/topic/DocBookPublishingTools

--
Thomas Schraitle

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Re: FO processors

by Keith Fahlgren-3 :: Rate this Message:

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O'Reilly uses Antenna House. The initial use case (a number of years
ago) demanded maximum speed, which favored AH over XEP (at the time).
We've been generally happy with AH, so we haven't re-evaluated. I
suspect you'd be happy with either, but your choice may depend on
language support or other features (as above).


HTH,
Keith

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Re: FO processors

by Tobias Anstett [k15t.com] :: Rate this Message:

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Thanks a lot for the input so far :-)

I will integrate both of them into our product and do some
benchmarking. From the architectural point of view XEP fits best,
because we are developing purely in Java and serving customers using a
lot of different systems.

Cheers,
Tobias


On Sat, Jun 6, 2009 at 6:51 PM, David Cramer<dcramer@...> wrote:

> We've used XEP for the past eight years or so and have been very happy
> with it. We also translate our docs into Japanese. While I'm not
> qualified to evaluate the Japanese output, I can say that our
> localization vendors have been satisfied with the results. It wouldn't
> surprise me if Antenna House's formatter is better at Asian languages
> since, as Tom mentioned, it's produced by a Japanese company (for
> example, I understand that knowing where to break a line in Japanese is
> tricky to do programmatically; perhaps Antenna house does better in that
> respect), but certainly XEP can produce acceptable results.
>
> There's a white paper that Eliot Kimber wrote about fo renderers that's
> fairly old by now, but perhaps would give you some ideas of what to
> consider when comparing them, especially with respect to
> internationalization:
> http://www.innodata-isogen.com/knowledge_center/white_papers/xslfo_print
> _wp (you have to create a free account to download the pdf).
>
> David
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: tom_schr@... [mailto:tom_schr@...]
> Sent: Saturday, June 06, 2009 3:38 AM
> To: docbook-apps@...
> Subject: Re: [docbook-apps] FO processors
>
> Hi Tobias,
>
> On Samstag, 6. Juni 2009, Tobias Anstett [k15t.com] wrote:
>>
>>
>> We are currently using Apache FOP and like to switch to a processor
>> that is more powerful (e.g. auto-column size table handling).
>>
>> Currently I am investigating:
>> - XSL Formatter (Antenna House)
>> - XEP (RenderX)
>>
>> Do you know more processors worth a look? And of course (I know Bob
>> uses XEP too) have anybody of you experience with one of the above?
>
> Well, my company uses XEP and we like it very much. It does all the
> things
> of the FO specification pretty well and is reasonably fast (although
> written in Java).
>
> In the past we've tried Antenna House XSL Formatter (AXF) too. Although
> it
> offers a native Linux port, is faster than XEP, offers more options, but
>
> it was a bit too expensive for us. Unfortunatly, from my observations,
> AXF was also not as easy to configure than XEP. Maybe that has changed
> now, but it was not as intuitive than XEP.
>
> If you have to render asian languages, AXF seems to make a better job
> than
> XEP. Well, AXF is written by a Japanese company that explains it. AXF
> supports SVG and MathML whereas XEP supports only the former.
> Unfortunatly, for AXF, you have to pay extra for the SVG and MathML
> modules, whereas XEP supports SVG out of the box.
>
>
> Of course there are other (commercial) formatters than the two above. I
> never tried it as most of them run on Windows only. For an overview,
> find
> more information at the DocBook Wiki, section "FO engines"[1].
>
>
> Hope that helps, :-)
> Tom
>
>
> -------
> [1] http://wiki.docbook.org/topic/DocBookPublishingTools
>
> --
> Thomas Schraitle
>
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> To unsubscribe, e-mail: docbook-apps-unsubscribe@...
> For additional commands, e-mail: docbook-apps-help@...
>
>
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> To unsubscribe, e-mail: docbook-apps-unsubscribe@...
> For additional commands, e-mail: docbook-apps-help@...
>
>



--
Cheers,
Tobias


________
K15t Software UG (haftungsbeschränkt), http://www.k15t.com
Rosenbergstr. 58, 70176 Stuttgart, GERMANY
Registration: Stuttgart HRB 729752, VAT ID: DE264753756
Geschäftsführer (CEO): Klaus-Dieter Krüger

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RE: FO processors

by Eric Johnson-30 :: Rate this Message:

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We use XEP and are pretty happy with it.

-----Original Message-----
From: Tobias Anstett [k15t.com] [mailto:tobias@...]
Sent: Saturday, June 06, 2009 2:38 AM
To: docbook-apps
Subject: [docbook-apps] FO processors

Hi,

I don't know if this is a little bit off-topic.

We are currently using Apache FOP and like to switch to a processor that is more powerful (e.g. auto-column size table handling).

Currently I am investigating:
- XSL Formatter (Antenna House)
- XEP (RenderX)

Do you know more processors worth a look? And of course (I know Bob uses XEP too) have anybody of you experience with one of the above?

--
Cheers,
Tobias


________
K15t Software UG (haftungsbeschränkt), http://www.k15t.com
Rosenbergstr. 58, 70176 Stuttgart, GERMANY
Registration: Stuttgart HRB 729752, VAT ID: DE264753756
Geschäftsführer (CEO): Klaus-Dieter Krüger

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