Last Updated on October 11, 2023
Apache FOP (Formatting Object Processor) is a print formatter driven by XSL formatting objects (XSL-FO) and an output independent formatter. It can be used to render an XML file containing XSL formatting objects into a page layout. The main target is PDF but other rendering targets are supported, such as AWT, PCL, text and direct printing.
It is a Java application that reads a formatting object (FO) tree and renders the resulting pages to a specified output.
Output formats currently supported include PDF, PS, PCL, AFP, XML (area tree representation), Print, AWT and PNG, and to a lesser extent, RTF and TXT. The primary output target is PDF.
Apache FOP is part of Apache’s XML Graphics project.
Features include:
- Provides both an application and a library that converts an XSL FO document into paginated output.
- The FOP command line application can be directly used to transform XML into PDF, PostScript, PCL and other formats, there is also an AWT based viewer integrated.
- The library can be used in servlets and other Java applications.
- Supports embedding image formats in the XSL-FO: PNG, BMP, PostScript, JPEG, SVG, and TIFF.
- Supports the following output formats: PDF including PDF/X and PDF/A, ASCII, PostScript, AFP, RTF, PCL, and Java2D/AWT.
Website: xmlgraphics.apache.org/fop
Support: Mailing List
Developer: Apache Software Foundation
License: Apache License version 2.0
Apache FOP is written in Java. Learn Java with our recommended free books and free tutorials.
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