Re: Customer requirement, a critque

On 25.2.2013 7:32, Patrick Gundlach wrote:

> AFAICS the current standard workflow for XML to PDF with XSL-FO is:
> 
> A) create "enriched" XML from a data source and layout instructions, possibly with XSLT or some other program.
> B) put this enriched XML into the renderer
> C) get the PDF and be happy :)
> 
> so a strict  A -> B -> C model. IMO you need a very close interaction between A and B to do more advanced layout. It would then be more something like this:
> 
>   A -> B -> A -> B -> A -> B -> A -> B -> C
> 
> And then I have a hard time to see how this can be compared to existing XSL-FO 1.1 workflows.

Well actually this is quite common workflow if you have enough
challenging requirements. Most FO processors can generate final layout
in form of XML instead of PDF. You can take this as an input to second
pass where you can change generated FOs based on result of a previous
formatting round.

Of course this is not based on any standard, each FO implementation uses
it's own format to store final layout.

Also one can imagine extension instruction for XSLT which will invoke FO
rendering of a partial FO document. Based on result of formatting XSLT
code can then decide to throw away this result or put it into final FO
file. This way many requirements including copy-fitting can be quite
easily implemented. I think this is a way to go. It builds on existing
XSLT+FO solution, but adds optional ability to invoke formatting in a
middle of transformation -- something which was up-to-date possible only
in lower level formatting engines like TeX.

    Jirka


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