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Re: Converting HTML docs to PDFs

Subject: Re: Converting HTML docs to PDFs
From: "Ken Munro" <kenmunro -at- gmail -dot- com>
To: "Renee Bornstein" <rbornstein -at- advisorsoftware -dot- com>
Date: Wed, 6 Sep 2006 09:03:33 -0300

Hi.

I think to get PDFs from XML for free or under $3000 it would be best to use
either an Apache tool called FOP, or you can buy something called XSLFast
which uses FOP but has a GUI front-end on it to speed up your style sheet
design. Using FOP alone, you will have to code your own XSLT file by hand.
(Fun at first, but the novelty wears off quick.)

FOP can be found at:
http://xmlgraphics.apache.org/fop/

XSLFast can be found at:
http://www.xslfast.com/

I have done both, and it sure helps to have a tool like XSLFast. It goes for
$890EU or $1200USD.

Good luck. I think you will have fun with this.

Ken Munro

--
email: kenmunro -at- gmail -dot- com
website: http://www.kenmunro.com/
podcast: http://www.kenmunro.com/kenmunro.rss


On 9/5/06, Renee Bornstein <rbornstein -at- advisorsoftware -dot- com> wrote:


Hi all,

Just joined; hope I'm not repeating earlier discussions.

I've got an assignment to document an XML API. There are a few good
tools for converting the XML to HTML, where the schema shows up in nice
frames and tables, complete with helpful diagrams. But the boss says we
must produce PDFs as well. I've been researching HTML-->PDF conversion
tools and it seems there are two categories: free/cheap that don't do a
very good job, and $3K+ that do wa-ay more than I need. The first
category of tools produce PDFs that are either too small to read, or
only capture part of the page (I could just print the original HTML if I
wanted that), and don't have a clue about page breaks, etc. This
category includes tools like HTML2PDF Pilot and PDFonlin. The second
category of tools produce beautiful PDFs, including nested tables, table
header continuations, and even the capability to put a Print To PDF
button on my webpages. The best I saw was Corda HighWire. However, I
don't have a budget for $3,000. I don't really have a budget at all, but
might could talk my way into a program that's under $500. Anyone been
through this and found a good HTML-->PDF converter?

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References:
Converting HTML docs to PDFs: From: Renee Bornstein

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