Hi all,
i've got several questions about PDF generation with FOP. We want to use a open-source implementation of XSL-FO in our project, but stumbled across several open topics. Perhaps you can help us with these:
1) Can one use FOP on a host-environment, ie. IBM mainframe computers, or does EBCDIC somehow cause problems
In my year and a half of using FOP I have heard of several people with problems using EBCDIC and nothing much recently.
Maybe they stopped using FOP or maybe they have no problems. You will probably have to suck it and see.
3) Is linearilazation possible, ie. displaying the first page while loading the rest? In Acrobat Reader, this can be queried in the "File- >Document Info->General->Optimized = true|false"
I think this is possible but I don't know whether I recommend it. If you generate on the fly then you will innevitably hit issues regarding Content Length and IE resulting in you generating the whole PDF before serving any of it at all. Is "linearilazation" a property of the PDF, the reader, or the thing serving the PDF?
4) How well does FOP perform in comparision to other XSL-FO implementations?
FOP's strength is not really in its speed or memory use. It performs reasonably when compared to other engines (so I am told) but other commercial xsl:fo engines may be faster for what you need to do.
Goodluck
Alex McLintock
Openweb Analysts Ltd, London: Software For Complex Websites http://www.OWAL.co.uk/
Free Consultancy for London Companies thinking of Open Source Software.
