Formatting Objects Processor

For other uses, see Formatting Objects Processor (disambiguation).

File:Apache fop.jpg

FOP (Formatting Objects Processor) is an XSL-FO processor written in Java, which provides the feature to convert XSL-FO files to PDF or direct-printable-files. FOP was originally developed by James Tauber who donated it to the Apache Software Foundation in 1999. It is part of the Apache XML project.

FOP is open source software, and is distributed under the Apache Software License.

Current Status

The stable version of Apache FOP is 0.20.5. Since then, the code base has undergone a substantial rewrite. The current, as of May 25, 2006, is the 0.92 beta. It is far more standards compliant with the XSL-FO specification, but has some bugs and restrictions with regard to output format.

Input Support

Apache FOP supports embedding a number of image formats in the XSL-FO (through the <fo:external-graphic> element). These include:

• SVG
• Bitmap BMP
• PostScript (as EPS)
• JPEG
• Some TIFF formats.

Output Formats

Apache FOP supports the following output formats:

• Direct printer output
• PDF (best output support)
• PostScript

Other output format support may exist, but is spotty for the 0.92 beta.

See also

• XSL-FO
• XSL

External links

• Apache FOP Project