Skip to main content
C
ClayHelberg18-Opal
18-Opal
May 12, 2016
Solved

XSL-FO support in Publishing Engine 7.0

  • May 12, 2016
  • 2 replies
  • 6727 views

Hi Folks--

I know that in previous versions of PE (<=6.x), XSL-FO support was implemented in a multi-stage approach, where the document is transformed into XSL-FO markup, and then a dynamically generated FOSI is used to create the final output. Can anyone verify whether that is still the case in PE 7.0? There was talk a while back of developing XSL-FO support via APP rather than via FOSI, but I haven't heard whether that actually went anywhere.

Thanks!

--Clay

Best answer by GarethOakes

It still works just like it ever did, there has not been any significant new development to XSL-FO support in Arbortext since Paul Grosso left. As you say: XML --(XSLT)--> XSL-FO --(ACL)--> FOSI --(TeX)--> DVI --(dvi2pdf)--> PDF.

I guess it would be technically possible to implement a subset of XSL-FO on top of APP but that hasn't happened and it's not clear if XSL-FO support is currently a focus for PTC.

2 replies

G
GarethOakes16-PearlAnswer
16-Pearl
May 12, 2016

It still works just like it ever did, there has not been any significant new development to XSL-FO support in Arbortext since Paul Grosso left. As you say: XML --(XSLT)--> XSL-FO --(ACL)--> FOSI --(TeX)--> DVI --(dvi2pdf)--> PDF.

I guess it would be technically possible to implement a subset of XSL-FO on top of APP but that hasn't happened and it's not clear if XSL-FO support is currently a focus for PTC.

    C
    ClayHelberg18-OpalAuthor
    18-Opal
    May 13, 2016

    Thanks, Gareth. I suspected as much, but wanted to confirm it.

    Just out of curiosity, why do you say "subset" when you mention the possibility of implementing XSL-FO on top of APP? I would have thought that APP's capabilities would be a superset of XSL-FO, so if you took the time you ought to be able to do a pretty complete implementation. Is there something specific you're thinking of in XSL-FO that would be tricky to layer on top of APP?

    --Clay

    G
    GarethOakes16-Pearl
    16-Pearl
    May 14, 2016

    Regards page layout and typesetting horsepower, sure, APP is able to build more complex layouts and solve more complicated problems than XSL-FO. What I meant by the word "subset" is related to the XSL-FO specification, which clearly defines things like: typesetting behaviour, whitespace collapsing behaviour, block model, and so on. There are variations in the algorithms and approach of APP composition versus the XSL-FO specification. FOSI is actually more closely aligned with how XSL-FO "thinks" about page layout and typesetting (I suspect the same or similar people worked on both specs).

    Last time I looked closely at implementing XSL-FO in APP there were enough differences in behaviour that it would be very difficult (costly) to correctly or completely implement XSL-FO on top of APP. APP now has a more robust block model so I'd guess it would be a lot easier these days. Either way I think it would still be a bit of a struggle to achieve 100% compatibility with the XSL-FO spec.

      R
      RayStachowiak1-Visitor
      1-Visitor
      May 16, 2016


      Hi Clay and Gareth and others

      In 7.0 F000 release notes they included the following:

      FOSI and XSL-FO Print Engines in Sustained Support

      The FOSI and XSL-FO print engines have been placed on sustained support with

      this release. They will not receive enhancements or maintenance fixes in the

      future.

      APP is the recommended engine for print output.

      I took to mean no more updates and no more continuation of FOSI or XSL-FO. However, There was a serious bug that crept in in 6.1M040 that would not run XSL-FO They fixed this issue in 6.1-M080 and 7.0 M020. I know since we had and reported this issue from our Military Group. But it does not seem PTC is planning of adding XSLFO to APP.

        C
        ClayHelberg18-OpalAuthor
        18-Opal
        May 20, 2016

        Thanks for the additional info, Raymond. There would certainly be advantages to having an actively maintained XSL-FO publishing path in PE, but I can also see why PTC would decide from a business perspective that it's probably not worth the cost of developing it.

          A
          AllissaLeach1-Visitor
          1-Visitor
          September 16, 2016

          We here at Redstone Arsenal use XSL-FO extensively. We have reported an issue with the XSL-FO crashing (CASE ) which we did fix the XSL-FO.  NOw we have the same issue, but we have been told that FOSI and XSL-FO are under sustainment.  Whatever the issue that was fixed previously it is still broken.  PTC may have thought they fixed it, but the bug(s) are still lurking out there.

          We are using 7.0 M030.  Right now we have several thousand page TMs that we cannot publish.

          Terms & ConditionsCookie settingsAccessibility statement