Apache FOP: Configuration $Revision$
Configuration File Basics

The FOP configuration file is an XML file containing a variety of settings that are useful for controlling FOP's behavior, and for helping it find resources that you wish it to use.

The easiest way to get started using a FOP configuration file is to copy the sample found at {fop-dir}/conf/fop.xconf to a location of your choice, and then to edit it according to your needs. It contains templates for the various configuration options, most of which are commented out. Remove the comments and change the settings for entries that you wish to use. Be sure to follow any instructions, including comments which specify the value range. Also, since the configuration file is XML, be sure to keep it well-formed.

Making Configuration Available to FOP

After creating your configuration file, you must tell FOP how to find it:

See Setting the Configuration Programmatically for instructions on how to do so in an embedded environment.

Summary of the General Configuration Options
Element Data Type (for the value) Default Value
base URL or directory Specifies the base URL based on which relative URL will be resolved.
font-base URL or directory Specifies the base URL based on which relative font URLs will be resolved. If not specified defaults to the base URL above.
hyphenation-base URL or directory Specifies the base URL based on which relative URLs to hyphenation pattern files will be resolved. If not specified, support for user-supplied hyphenation patterns remains disabled.
source-resolution Integer, dpi Resolution in dpi (dots per inch) which is used internally to determine the pixel size for SVG images and bitmap images without resolution information.
target-resolution Integer, dpi Resolution in dpi (dots per inch) used to specify the output resolution for bitmap images generated by bitmap renderers (such as the TIFF renderer) and by bitmaps generated by Apache Batik for filter effects and such.
strict-validation Boolean (true, false) Setting this option to 'false' causes FOP to be more forgiving about XSL-FO validity, for example, you're allowed to specify a border on a region-body which is supported by some FO implementations but is non-standard. Note that such a border would currently have no effect in Apache FOP.
break-indent-inheritance Boolean (true, false) Setting this option to 'true' causes FOP to use an alternative rule set to determine text indents specified through margins, start-indent and end-indent. Many commercial FO implementations have chosen to break the XSL specification in this aspect. This option tries to mimic their behaviour. Please note that Apache FOP may still not behave exactly like those implementations either because FOP has not fully matched the desired behaviour and because the behaviour among the commercial implementations varies. The default for this option (i.e. false) is to behave exactly like the specification describes.
default-page-settings n/a Specifies the default width and height of a page if "auto" is specified for either or both values. Use "height" and "width" attributes on the default-page-settings element to specify the two values.
renderers (see text below) Contains the configuration for each renderer. See below.

This is an excerpt from the example configuration file coming with FOP:

./ ./ 72 72 ]]>
Renderer configuration

Each Renderer has its own configuration section which is identified by the MIME type the Renderer is written for, ex. "application/pdf" for the PDF Renderer.

The configuration for the PDF Renderer could look like this:

flate ]]>

The details on the font configuration can be found on the separate Fonts page. Note especially the section entitled Register Fonts with FOP.

Special Settings for the PDF Renderer

The configuration element for the PDF renderer contains two elements. One is for the font configuration (please follow the link above) and one is for the "filter list". The filter list controls how the individual objects in a PDF file are encoded. By default, all objects get "flate" encoded (i.e. simply compressed with the same algorithm that is also used in ZIP files). Most users don't need to change that setting. For debugging purposes, it may be desired not to compress the internal objects at all so the generated PDF commands can be read. In that case, you can simply use the following filter list. The second filter list (type="image") ensures that all images still get compressed but also ASCII-85 encoded so the produced PDF file is still easily readable in a text editor.

null flate ascii-85 ]]>

Another (optional) setting specific to the PDF Renderer is an output color profile, an ICC color profile which indicates the target color space the PDF file is generated for. This setting is mainly used in conjunction with the PDF/X feature. An example:

C:\FOP\Color\EuropeISOCoatedFOGRA27.icc ]]>
Special Settings for the PostScript Renderer

Besides the normal font configuration (the same "fonts" element as for the PDF renderer) the PostScript renderer has an additional setting to force landscape pages to be rotated to fit on a page inserted into the printer in portrait mode. Set the value to "true" to activate this feature. The default is "false". Example:

true ]]>
Special Settings for the PCL Renderer

Non-standard fonts for the PCL renderer are made available through the Java2D subsystem which means that you don't have to do any custom font configuration in this case but you have to use the font names offered by Java.

Additionally, there are certain settings that control who the renderer handles various elements.

quality bitmap ]]>

The default value for the "rendering" setting is "speed" which causes borders to be painted as plain rectangles. In this mode, no special borders (dotted, dashed etc.) are available. If you want support for all border modes, set the value to "quality" as indicated above. This will cause the borders to be painted as bitmaps.

The default value for the "text-rendering" setting is "auto" which paints the base fonts using PCL fonts. Non-base fonts are painted as bitmaps through Java2D. If the mix of painting methods results in unwelcome output, you can set this to "bitmap" which causes all text to be rendered as bitmaps.

When it does not work

FOP searches the configuration file for the information it expects, at the position it expects. When that information is not present, FOP will not complain, it will just continue. When there is other information in the file, FOP will not complain, it will just ignore it. That means that when your configuration information is in the file but in a different XML element, or in a different XML path, than FOP expects, it will be silently ignored.

Check the following possibilities: