RE: XSL-FO Java API

I took a look at iText, but didn't think it could access the content from a
PDF file.  I glanced quickly through the documentation, but I seem to
remember it saying that it could read a PDF file, but not access the content
of the PDF document.  I was able to open a PDF file using the API and access
the information, such as number of pages and page rotation, but didn't see a
way to access (for example) the first paragraph.

I guess a way to pseudo-transform a PDF file into a tree-like structure is
what I really want.  Ideally, from a PDF file, you would get:

<document>
   <documentinfo>
      <author>Joe Smith</author>
   </documentinfo>
   <page>
      <paragraph>
         Ipsum dolorem factum ...
      </paragraph>
      <image encoding="base64">
         MLSKDFOQJHGJHGHHH ...
      </image>
   </page>
</document>

It's basically like taking a PDF file and doing a reverse of what an XSL-FO
processor like Apache FOP does.  The resulting tree would probably be an FO
document.  Do any products do reverse transforms of PDF into FO?

Thanks,
Tim Meals
tmeals@xxxxxxxxx

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:owner-xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of J.Pietschmann
Sent: Monday, May 27, 2002 12:42 PM
To: xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re:  XSL-FO Java API


Tim Meals wrote:
> Does anyone on the list have experience with various XSL-FO packages
> (Apache FOP, other commercial software) and their Java APIs?  I would
> like to access an XSL-FO document via an API tailored specifically to
> that format.  I'm thinking using DOM would be painful, as you'd have to
> parse the tree to pull apart the document.  Ideally, there should be a
> way to represent the FO document as a page, its attributes, and its
> content.

XSLFO is XML, and can be represented as DOM, or a SAX event
stream, or an unparsed charachter or binary stream.
The Apache FO processor allows you to use any of these for input.

I'm not sure what you mean by "represent the FO document as a page".
Layout and pagination are tasks of the FO processor. There is no
explicit page structure in a FO document, apart from explicit page
breaks and related constructs. There are Java libraries which
actually use pages and page content descriptions for generating
output, check out for example iText for generating PDF.

J.Pietschmann



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