RE: Convert existing PDF to XSL-FO tool
Please see my reply in Ganesh tag. -Original Message- From: Andreas L. Delmelle [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, September 09, 2003 11:01 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: Convert existing PDF to XSL-FO tool I am not using XSL-FO from XSLT. I using Apache Velocity which has an inbuilt template language (VTL) to fetch data from Java Beans on to any text file. The dynamic data are merged with XSL-FO template using Velocity and the resulting XSL-FO file is then given to FOP for generating PDF. Not sure what to make of this: first you don't use XSL-FO from XSLT, but you *are* using an XSL-FO template? (Would the latter be a FO in which some sort of a classic search-and-replace is performed? In that case, I do think XML+XSL-FO is a more than valid alternative. Meaning: perform the XML+merging with Velocity in a 'template XML' that could afterwards be styled - e.g. via Xalan - to deliver the FO) Ganesh That is right, I am NOT using XSLT right now, I am using Velocity for the typical data merge with Java beans (java beans from fed in by another application). And Velocity is indeed very fast after caching the velocity templates. However I am stuck up with FOP (0.20.5) now, it takes a long time processing the fo tables? I did the profiling and it was taking too much of time in tables, tablerow, tablecell. Is there anyway I can optimize this? I have around 20 tables with each 20 rows and 5 cells. Is there any way to optimize fo tables (I do NOT have nested tables)? Is there any alternative to fo-tables, or should I try something with fo block and manipulate it to give look and feel of a table? I tried to generate PDF of same size with just block text, it finished the whole processing in half the time. Any help in this regard would be of immense help. /Ganesh I agree that reverse compiler are not precise, but I am a novice in XSL-FO template creation. It would be of great help if any tool can provide a good start on which I can build on. It would be good enough if I could copy-paste the PDF file content onto some XSL-FO editor and it generates the XSL-FO for me. Is anybody aware of such a XSL-FO editor?. I heard of XMLSpy, when I searched the Google, but not sure which is best for my requirement(ie., with existing PDF and free if possible). First of all, I know of no such tool ( In fact there are AFAIK no tools that take a pdf as basis and deliver some other output-format, I guess the process would just be too complicated ). Also, difficulties would probably arise when a tool like this would deliver XSL-FO containing tags or constructs not yet supported by FOP ... Second, I think XMLSpy would not help you out here ( AFAIK they do offer an alternative to FOP, so I cannot help but NOT recommend you this ... ;) ) And third, I really think this would not be a good way for an XSL-FO-novice to start learning XSL-FO template creation. Start from scratch as this will definitely learn you more about what the fo-tags do... (first-hand experience and all that) If you insist, however, on having someone/something else perform the pdf to fo translation, send us a pdf and I would be more than willing to help you on your way to make a fo for that kind of layout. Ganesh Thanks for the information. I am planning to use some authoring tool and in the process try to learn XSL-FO and do the best possible XSL-FO with help from you people. But I designed the whole template with fo tables and it slows down the PDf a lot. /Ganesh Greetz, Andreas Delmelle - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Accurate Software [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.accuratesoftware.com Europe . North America . Australasia . Africa The information in this email is confidential and privileged and is intended only for the use of the individual or entity listed above. If you are neither the intended individual, or entity listed above, nor the person responsible for the delivery of this email to the intended recipients, you are hereby notified that any unauthorised distribution, copying or use of this email is prohibited. If you have received this email in error, please notify the Accurate system manager at [EMAIL PROTECTED] or on +44 (0)118 977 3889. The views expressed in this communication may not necessarily be the views held by the Accurate Group. - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: Convert existing PDF to XSL-FO tool
-Original Message- From: Ganesh [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] That is right, I am NOT using XSLT right now, I am using Velocity for the typical data merge with Java beans (java beans from fed in by another application). And Velocity is indeed very fast after caching the velocity templates. However I am stuck up with FOP (0.20.5) now, it takes a long time processing the fo tables? I did the profiling and it was taking too much of time in tables, tablerow, tablecell. Is there anyway I can optimize this? I have around 20 tables with each 20 rows and 5 cells. Is there any way to optimize fo tables (I do NOT have nested tables)? Is there any alternative to fo-tables, or should I try something with fo block and manipulate it to give look and feel of a table? I dunno for sure... As I understand, a table is processed from beginning to end and kept in memory for as long as its processing is not completely finished. ( If you were to use a layout of one table containing 400 rows, this would diminish performance significantly... The other way round maybe? Use a different table for each row? ) I tried to generate PDF of same size with just block text, it finished the whole processing in half the time. Any help in this regard would be of immense help. Of course, this would also depend on the content of the table-cells. Processing text is far more straightforward than graphic data ( so, try using the formats for which FOP has native support - reduces having to access methods in other libraries, e.g. Batik / JAI ). Thanks for the information. I am planning to use some authoring tool and in the process try to learn XSL-FO and do the best possible XSL-FO with help from you people. But I designed the whole template with fo tables and it slows down the PDf a lot. Also, for an example of a GUI app in which you can design documents visually and save it in fo format, try Inventive Designers' Scriptura http://www.inventivedesigners.com/ I admit, it's distgustingly expensive, but the demo allows you to save in fo-format 5 times or so... Should get you going. ( hope you have a high-speed connection, though ) Greetz, Andreas Delmelle - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: Convert existing PDF to XSL-FO tool
We started using FOP based on the same requirements and have been thrilled with the results. If you can get from XSL-FO to PDF, I'm not sure why you might need a path *back*. If you are looking to create the PDF through something like Acrobat Exchange, then spit out the xsl:fo, you may be in trouble. But if you're willing to sit down and learn xsl:fo, IMO FOP makes a nice, powerful, free solution. Although I have heard of XSL:FO WSYWIG editors in the works. Any updates? -Matt -Original Message- From: John Marshall [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, September 10, 2003 12:48 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: Convert existing PDF to XSL-FO tool I am glad to see that the expert advice is *don't*. I was given the project of finding an alternative to HTML that allowed pagination and my colleagues' suggestion was to try PDF. I found that by the time a document is in PDF it is decomposed into glyphs and vectors and all of the context information has been filtered out. The answer to my problem was, of course, XSL-FO with an easy and rational path to PDF, but I do not believe there is any way back from PDF to XSL-FO that will not involve pain and heartache. John Marshall Accurate Software 80 Peach Street, Wokingham, Berkshire, RG40 1XH, UK. Tel: +44 (0)118 977 3889 Fax: +44 (0)118 977 1260 http://www.accuratesoftware.com http://www.accuratesoftware.com -Original Message- From: Andreas L. Delmelle [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: 09 September 2003 18:31 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: Convert existing PDF to XSL-FO tool From: Ganesh [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] I am not using XSL-FO from XSLT. I using Apache Velocity which has an inbuilt template language (VTL) to fetch data from Java Beans on to any text file. The dynamic data are merged with XSL-FO template using Velocity and the resulting XSL-FO file is then given to FOP for generating PDF. Not sure what to make of this: first you don't use XSL-FO from XSLT, but you *are* using an XSL-FO template? (Would the latter be a FO in which some sort of a classic search-and-replace is performed? In that case, I do think XML+XSL-FO is a more than valid alternative. Meaning: perform the merging with Velocity in a 'template XML' that could afterwards be styled - e.g. via Xalan - to deliver the FO) I agree that reverse compiler are not precise, but I am a novice in XSL-FO template creation. It would be of great help if any tool can provide a good start on which I can build on. It would be good enough if I could copy-paste the PDF file content onto some XSL-FO editor and it generates the XSL-FO for me. Is anybody aware of such a XSL-FO editor?. I heard of XMLSpy, when I searched the Google, but not sure which is best for my requirement(ie., with existing PDF and free if possible). First of all, I know of no such tool ( In fact there are AFAIK no tools that take a pdf as basis and deliver some other output-format, I guess the process would just be too complicated ). Also, difficulties would probably arise when a tool like this would deliver XSL-FO containing tags or constructs not yet supported by FOP ... Second, I think XMLSpy would not help you out here ( AFAIK they do offer an alternative to FOP, so I cannot help but NOT recommend you this ... ;) ) And third, I really think this would not be a good way for an XSL-FO-novice to start learning XSL-FO template creation. Start from scratch as this will definitely learn you more about what the fo-tags do... (first-hand experience and all that) If you insist, however, on having someone/something else perform the pdf to fo translation, send us a pdf and I would be more than willing to help you on your way to make a fo for that kind of layout. Greetz, Andreas Delmelle - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Accurate Software [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.accuratesoftware.com Europe . North America . Australasia . Africa The information in this email is confidential and privileged and is intended only for the use of the individual or entity listed above. If you are neither the intended individual, or entity listed above, nor the person responsible for the delivery of this email to the intended recipients, you are hereby notified that any unauthorised distribution, copying or use of this email is prohibited. If you have received this email in error, please notify the Accurate system manager at [EMAIL PROTECTED] or on +44 (0)118 977 3889. The views expressed in this communication may not necessarily be the views held by the Accurate Group. - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED
Re: Convert existing PDF to XSL-FO tool
Andreas L. Delmelle wrote: I dunno for sure... As I understand, a table is processed from beginning to end and kept in memory for as long as its processing is not completely finished. Actually, it is worse. J.Pietschmann - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Convert existing PDF to XSL-FO tool
Ganesh wrote: Hi, Thank you for the reply. I am not using XSL-FO from XSLT. I using Apache Velocity which has an inbuilt template language (VTL) to fetch data from Java Beans on to any text file. The dynamic data are merged with XSL-FO template using Velocity and the resulting XSL-FO file is then given to FOP for generating PDF. I agree that reverse compiler are not precise, but I am a novice in XSL-FO template creation. It would be of great help if any tool can provide a good start on which I can build on. It would be good enough if I could copy-paste the PDF file content onto some XSL-FO editor and it generates the XSL-FO for me. Is anybody aware of such a XSL-FO editor?. Have a look on AbiWord. It could read and write *.fo and many other formats. I heard of XMLSpy, when I searched the Google, but not sure which is best for my requirement(ie., with existing PDF and free if possible). Regards, Ganesh -Original Message- From: Glen Mazza [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, September 09, 2003 5:02 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Convert existing PDF to XSL-FO tool Reverse compilers, for whatever languages, are quite rare and usually buggy, wouldn't you say? Furthermore, editing XSL FO directly is cumbersome, so you would probably want an XML source instead that you can run against an XSLT stylesheet to generate your XSL FO. It may be better to try to access the original documents that made the PDF to begin with--Microsoft Word, perhaps. (Or, copy and paste your PDF into text format.) Convert--manually if need be--into XML, then create modify your XSLT stylesheet to generate the output desired. If you're starting from scratch Docbook may be the best option as an XML format for your documents--although FOP cannot completely handle its standard stylesheets at this time. Glen --- Ganesh [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi Genies, I would like to know if there is anyway to convert the existing PDF file to XSL-FO file. This is basically for migrating the manual process of creating PDF to XSL-FO way. I already have a PDF which is created through manual process, I want to convert the same to XSL-FO and then manipulate it later. It will be great if any of you knows such tools. Thank you. Regards, Ganesh __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: Convert existing PDF to XSL-FO tool
I am glad to see that the expert advice is *don't*. I was given the project of finding an alternative to HTML that allowed pagination and my colleagues' suggestion was to try PDF. I found that by the time a document is in PDF it is decomposed into glyphs and vectors and all of the context information has been filtered out. The answer to my problem was, of course, XSL-FO with an easy and rational path to PDF, but I do not believe there is any way back from PDF to XSL-FO that will not involve pain and heartache. John Marshall Accurate Software 80 Peach Street, Wokingham, Berkshire, RG40 1XH, UK. Tel: +44 (0)118 977 3889 Fax: +44 (0)118 977 1260 http://www.accuratesoftware.com http://www.accuratesoftware.com -Original Message- From: Andreas L. Delmelle [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: 09 September 2003 18:31 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: Convert existing PDF to XSL-FO tool From: Ganesh [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] I am not using XSL-FO from XSLT. I using Apache Velocity which has an inbuilt template language (VTL) to fetch data from Java Beans on to any text file. The dynamic data are merged with XSL-FO template using Velocity and the resulting XSL-FO file is then given to FOP for generating PDF. Not sure what to make of this: first you don't use XSL-FO from XSLT, but you *are* using an XSL-FO template? (Would the latter be a FO in which some sort of a classic search-and-replace is performed? In that case, I do think XML+XSL-FO is a more than valid alternative. Meaning: perform the merging with Velocity in a 'template XML' that could afterwards be styled - e.g. via Xalan - to deliver the FO) I agree that reverse compiler are not precise, but I am a novice in XSL-FO template creation. It would be of great help if any tool can provide a good start on which I can build on. It would be good enough if I could copy-paste the PDF file content onto some XSL-FO editor and it generates the XSL-FO for me. Is anybody aware of such a XSL-FO editor?. I heard of XMLSpy, when I searched the Google, but not sure which is best for my requirement(ie., with existing PDF and free if possible). First of all, I know of no such tool ( In fact there are AFAIK no tools that take a pdf as basis and deliver some other output-format, I guess the process would just be too complicated ). Also, difficulties would probably arise when a tool like this would deliver XSL-FO containing tags or constructs not yet supported by FOP ... Second, I think XMLSpy would not help you out here ( AFAIK they do offer an alternative to FOP, so I cannot help but NOT recommend you this ... ;) ) And third, I really think this would not be a good way for an XSL-FO-novice to start learning XSL-FO template creation. Start from scratch as this will definitely learn you more about what the fo-tags do... (first-hand experience and all that) If you insist, however, on having someone/something else perform the pdf to fo translation, send us a pdf and I would be more than willing to help you on your way to make a fo for that kind of layout. Greetz, Andreas Delmelle - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Accurate Software [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.accuratesoftware.com Europe . North America . Australasia . Africa The information in this email is confidential and privileged and is intended only for the use of the individual or entity listed above. If you are neither the intended individual, or entity listed above, nor the person responsible for the delivery of this email to the intended recipients, you are hereby notified that any unauthorised distribution, copying or use of this email is prohibited. If you have received this email in error, please notify the Accurate system manager at [EMAIL PROTECTED] or on +44 (0)118 977 3889. The views expressed in this communication may not necessarily be the views held by the Accurate Group. - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: Convert existing PDF to XSL-FO tool
From: Ganesh [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] I am not using XSL-FO from XSLT. I using Apache Velocity which has an inbuilt template language (VTL) to fetch data from Java Beans on to any text file. The dynamic data are merged with XSL-FO template using Velocity and the resulting XSL-FO file is then given to FOP for generating PDF. Not sure what to make of this: first you don't use XSL-FO from XSLT, but you *are* using an XSL-FO template? (Would the latter be a FO in which some sort of a classic search-and-replace is performed? In that case, I do think XML+XSL-FO is a more than valid alternative. Meaning: perform the merging with Velocity in a 'template XML' that could afterwards be styled - e.g. via Xalan - to deliver the FO) I agree that reverse compiler are not precise, but I am a novice in XSL-FO template creation. It would be of great help if any tool can provide a good start on which I can build on. It would be good enough if I could copy-paste the PDF file content onto some XSL-FO editor and it generates the XSL-FO for me. Is anybody aware of such a XSL-FO editor?. I heard of XMLSpy, when I searched the Google, but not sure which is best for my requirement(ie., with existing PDF and free if possible). First of all, I know of no such tool ( In fact there are AFAIK no tools that take a pdf as basis and deliver some other output-format, I guess the process would just be too complicated ). Also, difficulties would probably arise when a tool like this would deliver XSL-FO containing tags or constructs not yet supported by FOP ... Second, I think XMLSpy would not help you out here ( AFAIK they do offer an alternative to FOP, so I cannot help but NOT recommend you this ... ;) ) And third, I really think this would not be a good way for an XSL-FO-novice to start learning XSL-FO template creation. Start from scratch as this will definitely learn you more about what the fo-tags do... (first-hand experience and all that) If you insist, however, on having someone/something else perform the pdf to fo translation, send us a pdf and I would be more than willing to help you on your way to make a fo for that kind of layout. Greetz, Andreas Delmelle - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Convert existing PDF to XSL-FO tool
Ganesh wrote: It would be of great help if any tool can provide a good start on which I can build on. Take a look at FOA. It would be good enough if I could copy-paste the PDF file content onto some XSL-FO editor and it generates the XSL-FO for me. PDF is based on PostScript, in great simplification a language which tells a printer to print stuff on certain absolute positions on a sheet of paper. Modelling this in XSLFO is possible, using lots of absolutely positioned block-containers, but I don't think this is what you want. The strength of XSLFO is that you can define blocks of content and let the formatter take care of page and line breaking, space justification and ultimately placing stuff on absolute positions on a page. J.Pietschmann - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
