fop/README

$Id$

==============================================================================
  APACHE FOP  -  README
==============================================================================

Contents of this file:
 - What is FOP?
 - Where to get help?
 - How do I build FOP?
 - How do I run FOP?
 - Release Notes

==============================================================================


What is FOP?
---------------

Apache FOP is the world's first print formatter driven by XSL formatting 
objects. It is a Java application that reads a formatting object tree 
conforming to the XSL 1.0 Recommendation (15 October 2001) and then turns it 
into a PDF document, certain other output formats or allows you to preview it 
directly on screen.

Apache FOP is part of Apache's XML Graphics project. The homepage of Apache 
FOP is http://xmlgraphics.apache.org/fop/.
    
    
Where to get help?
---------------------    
    
http://xmlgraphics.apache.org/fop/gethelp.html
    
A mailing list where you can get all your questions about FOP answered is at 
fop-users@xmlgraphics.apache.org. You can subscribe by sending an empty mail 
to fop-users-subscribe@xmlgraphics.apache.org.

Before you post any questions, please have a look at the FAQ at 
http://xmlgraphics.apache.org/fop/faq.html and FO help page at 
http://xmlgraphics.apache.org/fop/fo.html.

Please report bugs to bugzilla at http://issues.apache.org/bugzilla/


How do I build FOP?
----------------------

If you've downloaded a binary distribution, you don't need to build FOP.

Otherwise, please follow the instructions found here:
http://xmlgraphics.apache.org/fop/0.90/compiling.html


How do I run FOP?
--------------------

Simply by typing "fop" on the command-line. Without any parameters you
will receive a screen with instruction on how to call FOP from the
command-line.

For more details, see: http://xmlgraphics.apache.org/fop/latest/running.html

==============================================================================
  RELEASE NOTES
==============================================================================

Version 0.91 beta
---------------------

We don't list all the changes since the 0.20.5 release, since this release 
represents the first after a complete redesign of the FOP codebase. This 
is basically a new software. But the changes since 0.90 alpha 1 can be looked
up under http://xmlgraphics.apache.org/fop/changes.html.

Upgrading from 0.20.5:
Please read http://xmlgraphics.apache.org/fop/latest/upgrading.html

The Apache FOP team asks you for your continued feedback on the new software.
We're also interested in success stories with the new release. So if the
latest version works fine for you, please tell us! And if it doesn't, you
may tell us as well, of course. ;-)

Caveats:

    - This release is a beta release. If you intend to use this software 
      in a production environment, please perform careful testing.
    - The API is not to be considered stable, yet. Please be prepared 
      for the API to be changed in a backwards-incompatible way.
    - You may experience different behaviour compared to version 0.20.5.
      Please consult the "Upgrading" page indicated above for details.

Known issues:

    - PCL, MIF and SVG support have not been restored, yet.
    - Java2D/AWT support contains some problems, for example with 
      block-containers.
    - Support for kerning has not been restored, yet.
    - Auto table layout is not implemented, yet.
    - The collapsing border model on tables is not implemented, yet. Please 
      use border-collapse="separate" for now.
    - Footnotes may overlap with text of the region-body in multi-column 
      documents.
    - Space resolution does not work between footnote regions.
    - There's a problem involving nested block-containers and 
      reference-orientation 180/-180 (Bugzilla #36391)
    - block-containers with no height currently don't create a fence for
      spaces as they should (they behave like a normal block).
    - Preserved linefeeds in fo:character are not handled correctly.
    - Zero-width spaces are not handled correctly.
    - An empty block currently produces a fence for stacking constraints
      which it shouldn't.
    - There are several small problems around white space handling.
    - Images currently don't shrink so they fit on a page when they are 
      too big and shrinking is allowed to happen.
    - Block-level content in fo:inlines may produce unwelcome results.
    - inline-container may not work as expected.
    - letter-spacing and word-spacing properties may not work as expected.
    - leaders with leader-pattern="use-content" may not work as expected.
    - keep-with-previous doesn't work inside tables and lists, yet.
    - White space on direct inline-level children of a marker is not 
      handled correctly.
    - If two consecutive pages don't have the same available width, the 
      content currently isn't properly fit into the available space on
      the new page.
    - background-images on page-number-citations are not placed correctly.
    - Not all FO elements can be referenced by their "id", most notably:
      table-body, table-header, table-footer and table-row.
    - The backgrounds of table-body, table-header, table-footer and 
      table-column are not painted, yet.
    - Border and padding conditionality are not supported on table-cells, yet.
    - Copy/Paste from PDF content in Acrobat Reader is not supported for
      text using embedded TrueType fonts.
    - Column balancing in multi-column documents may not work as expected
      (Bugzilla #36356)
    - Omitting fo:table-column or having fo:table-column without a column-width 
      and attempting to create columns implicitly from the first
      table row is not implemented, yet (Bugzilla #35656).
    - Leaders with the "rule" pattern don't work for PostScript output.
    - break-after may in some cases cause subsequent content to be swallowed. 
      Please use break-before, if possible.