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Now, let's apply this to XSL-FO, and the distinction between Antenna House
and FOP. Antenna House is a superb FO renderer, one of the best on the
planet. Yet FO by itself is not a widely used final format, but instead has
become a de facto intermediate format on the way to other things -- PDF,
Word, and so forth. The principle reason for this is because FO is too
complex to use compared to HTML, while at the same time too semantically
poor to maintain page content for repurposing. For me, the XSL-FO
intermediate state is important for coming from other XML, however, but what
I need out of it is that final render state, whether as PDF or as something
else.
XSL-FO is not appropriate for intermediate format. Because it loses
information on the structure, semantics in your argument, of original XML.
Instead it is added information for presentation. The same applies to
HTML, the information distributed in HTML is hard to re-use.
HTML and XSL-FO is not intended for intermediate format, but for
presentation and navigation (in case of HTML) format.
XSL-FO to Word conversion is NOT considered as a good path, you had better
transform from original XML to Word. You may also transform XML to
WordML. In this case, rendering engine has no relation with the
transformation.
The archtecture should be:
XML ---> HTML ---> Browser
XML ---> XSL-FO --> XSL-FO processor
XML ---> WordML --> Word, or compatible processor
FOP is open source. I can modify that code, so long as I am willing to give
back that code into the community (which I will be). This will help me
achieve my goal, which is to build a publishing distribution service for
e-books. While I will be selling the conversions to PDF, anyone with a copy
of Adobe Acrobat Pro can do the same thing, with the same level of fidelity.
However, if my goal is to get code into a maintainable intermediate
format(s) (in some other XML dialect) then FOP works quite fine to my needs.
My business, which is not a software publisher, gains this capability to
perform the conversions without the overhead of having infrastructure that I
don't wish to support on our own applications. I produce ancillary
technology based upon that including stylesheets and validation services
that I then contribute back into the overall good, while still supporting my
business model. In essence, the GPL in particular codifies the principal of
sharing.
As I can not imagine your needs, I suppose your modification is not easy
if you wish to add functions to the core of FOP. My recommendation is:
You had better invest your time and days into content of e-book, not
for modification of FOP.
Best regards,
Tokushige Kobayashi
Antenna House, Inc.
E-mail koba(_at_)antenna(_dot_)co(_dot_)jp
WWW http://www.antenna.co.jp/XML/xml-top.htm
WWW http://www.antennahouse.com/ (English)
TEL +81-3-3234-1361(direct call)
FAX +81-3-3221-9975
Antenna House XSL School
http://www.antenna.co.jp/XML/school/xslday.htm
XSL-List info and archive: http://www.mulberrytech.com/xsl/xsl-list