Our product intends to save you a significant amount of your time, and spare you the difficulties of a manual process. As explained in my previous post “How to create PDF files from XML with Apache-FOP”, XSL-FO and Apache-FOP provide a free and standard way to create PDF files in a language independent manner.
But
there are a number of disadvantages with that approach, e.g.:
- you have to learn XSL-FO (and therefore also XPath and XSL).
- even if you know XSL-FO you do not want to be writing FO templates using a text editor.
- there is some logic that cannot be easily defined using
XSL-FO. For example, grouping of data requires you to use the so
called Muenchian
method , which isn't straightforward to understand.
In order to overcome these drawbacks, at J4L Components we have developed J4L FO Designer. The designer is a Visual (WYSIWYG) editor that will generate XSL-FO files for you. This makes the start into the XSL-FO world very easy, and it is also a useful tool for experienced developers since you can create and test XSL-FO files very quickly.
Additionally, it will also implement the algorithms
for data grouping and running subtotals. Even though the tool has been
created and tested for Apache FOP, the generated XSL-FO files would
work with other FOP implementations.
Last but not least, we
have added additional features to the FOP server (this is outside the
standard) such as digital signatures and creation of PDF interactive
forms.
You can
download the evaluation version here.
Example
In the previous post we have seen how to create a "Hello World" PDF file by using XSL-FO files. The following instructions explain how the same PDF file can be created using J4L FO Designer:
1) We use the same persons.xml file:
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<persons>
<person>
<name>John</name>
</person><person>
<name>Mary</name>
</person></persons>
2) Open the designer, select the "Test Data" section on top of the left column and load persons.xml