Production Quality XSL-FO 2002-12

Date:      Wed, 18 Dec 2002 17:02:32 -0600
From:      W. Eliot Kimber <eliot@isogen.com>
To:        XSL-FO <XSL-FO@YahooGroups.com>
Subject:   XML 2002 Paper Posted: Production Quality XSL-FO

I have posted my XML 2002 paper on the ISOGEN Web site at:

http://www.isogen.com/papers/production-quality-xsl-fo.pdf

You can also navigate to it at:

http://www.isogen.com/downloads/white_papers/white_papers.jsp

This paper reflects the state of the world as of late October 2002. Since I wrote it, the following FO implementations have been released or announced:

Adobe Document Server. Includes an FO-to-PDF component based on top of Framemaker. Doesn't implement as many features as XEP or XSL Formatter, but lets you use Frame-specific functionality from the FO, such as Frame templates. Provides some extensions, including a revision bar mechanism.
SUN's xmlroff open-source FO implementation. Written in C. Provides internationalization features, including support for right-to-left writing modes. Feature support is "almost basic conformance". Should be released Real Soon Now (just waiting for final approvals).
3B2's to-be-named "free or almost-free" FO implementation, built on top of the 3B2 formatting engine.
Antenna House announced Unix and Linux support in 1Q2003 (they are doing final release testing now).
IBM's XFC FO implementation was released as part of a larger AFP product. IBM assures me that it is under active development.

It was standing room only by the time I was done presenting my talk, which is pretty good considering I was up against Norm Walsh. From the questions I got asked, it was clear that a lot of enterprises are starting to investigate the use of XSL-FO to do sophisticated page composition.

Cheers,

Eliot

W. Eliot Kimber
eliot@isogen.com
Consultant
ISOGEN International

1016 La Posada Dr., Suite 240
Austin, TX 78752
Phone: 512.656.4139

Prepared by Robin Cover for The XML Cover Pages archive. Related resources in: (1) "XSL/XSLT Software Support"; (2) "Extensible Stylesheet Language (XSL/XSLT)."

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