Running FOP
Installation
Overview

The following software must be installed:

  • Java 1.2.x or later.
  • FOP. The FOP distribution includes all libraries that you will need to run a basic FOP installation. These can be found in the xml-fop/lib directory. These libraries include the following:
    • Apache Xerces-J for XML parsing. You can use other XML parsers which support SAX and DOM.
    • Apache Xalan, an XSLT processor.
    • Apache Batik, an SVG library.
  • Optional Libraries
Instructions

Basic FOP installation consists of first unzipping the .gz file that is the distribution medium, then unarchiving the resulting .tar file in a directory/folder that is convenient on your system. Please consult your operating system documentation or Zip application software documentation for instructions specific to your site.

Problems

Some Mac OSX users have experienced filename truncation problems using Stuffit to unzip and unarchive their distribution media. This is a legacy of older Mac operating systems, which had a 31-character pathname limit. Several Mac OSX users have recommended that Mac OSX users use the shell command tar -xzf instead.

Starting FOP as a standalone application

Review the batch file fop.bat or the shell script fop.sh to see how FOP is invoked.

The standard scripts for starting FOP require that the environment variable JAVA_HOME be set to a path pointing to the appropriate Java installation on your system. Macintosh OSX includes a Java environment as part of its distribution. We are told by Mac OSX users that the path to use in this case is /Library/Java/Home. Caveat: We suspect that, as Apple releases new Java environments and as FOP upgrades the minimum Java requirements, the two will inevitably not match on some systems. Please see Java on Mac OSX FAQ for information as it becomes available.

Fop [options] [-fo|-xml] infile [-xsl file] [-awt|-pdf|-mif|-pcl|-txt|-svg|-at|-print] <outfile>

[OPTIONS]

-d debug mode
-x dump configuration settings
-q quiet mode
-c cfg.xml use additional configuration file cfg.xml
-l lang the language to use for user information

[INPUT]

infile xsl:fo input file (the same as the next)
-fo infile xsl:fo input file
-xml infile xml input file, must be used together with -xsl
-xsl stylesheet xslt stylesheet

[OUTPUT]

outfile input will be rendered as pdf file into outfile
-pdf outfile input will be rendered as pdf file (outfile req'd)
-awt input will be displayed on screen
-mif outfile input will be rendered as mif file (outfile req'd)
-pcl outfile input will be rendered as pcl file (outfile req'd)
-txt outfile input will be rendered as text file (outfile req'd)
-svg outfile input will be rendered as an svg slides file (outfile req'd) -at outfile representation of area tree as XML (outfile req'd) -print input file will be rendered and sent to the printer
see options with "-print help"

[Examples]

Fop foo.fo foo.pdf
Fop -fo foo.fo -pdf foo.pdf (does the same as the previous line)
Fop -xsl foo.xsl -xml foo.xml -pdf foo.pdf
Fop foo.fo -mif foo.mif
Fop foo.fo -print or Fop -print foo.fo
Fop foo.fo -awt
Problems

If you have problems running FOP, please have a look at the "How to get Help" page.