XEP
Encyclopedia
XEP is a commercial XSL-FO
layout engine written in Java
mainly used to convert XML
to PDF. XEP is proprietary software by RenderX
.
is available, including Windows
, Linux
, FreeBSD
and other server platforms.
as input, as well as XML+XSLT
. Its output formats are: PDF, PostScript
, AFP
, PPML
, XPS, HTML
, SVG, and internal XML-based format called XEPOUT.
XEP demonstrates conformance with XSL-FO Recommendation v1.0, a wide range of extensions, and support for a good subset of XSL 1.1 features.
Available font types, depending on the output format generator, are Type 1
, TrueType
and OpenType
, with the ability of embedding and subsetting.
Accepted images are most of flavors of raster graphics, SVG, EPS
and PDF.
XEP has a flexible configuration, which allows running it concurrently in threads on huge input documents, but also in a small heap in diskless environments such as appservers.
wrapper called XEPWin, and an accompanying .NET development kit with API in C#, VB
and ASP.NET
.
Satellite software includes EnMasse - a multiplexer of a grid of XEP engines, with simple networked API and examples in C
, Java, Perl
and Python
.
XSL Formatting Objects
XSL Formatting Objects, or XSL-FO, is a markup language for XML document formatting which is most often used to generate PDFs. XSL-FO is part of XSL , a set of W3C technologies designed for the transformation and formatting of XML data. The other parts of XSL are XSLT and XPath...
layout engine written in Java
Java (programming language)
Java is a programming language originally developed by James Gosling at Sun Microsystems and released in 1995 as a core component of Sun Microsystems' Java platform. The language derives much of its syntax from C and C++ but has a simpler object model and fewer low-level facilities...
mainly used to convert XML
XML
Extensible Markup Language is a set of rules for encoding documents in machine-readable form. It is defined in the XML 1.0 Specification produced by the W3C, and several other related specifications, all gratis open standards....
to PDF. XEP is proprietary software by RenderX
RenderX
RenderX, Inc is a commercial software development company that provides standards-based software products, used for typeset-quality electronic and print output of business content...
.
History
Started in 1999 as a working prototype written in Perl and completely rewritten in Java soon after, XEP has evolved into a complete engine. XEP runs on any platform where Java runtimeJava Virtual Machine
A Java virtual machine is a virtual machine capable of executing Java bytecode. It is the code execution component of the Java software platform. Sun Microsystems stated that there are over 4.5 billion JVM-enabled devices.-Overview:...
is available, including Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
, Linux
Linux
Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...
, FreeBSD
FreeBSD
FreeBSD is a free Unix-like operating system descended from AT&T UNIX via BSD UNIX. Although for legal reasons FreeBSD cannot be called “UNIX”, as the direct descendant of BSD UNIX , FreeBSD’s internals and system APIs are UNIX-compliant...
and other server platforms.
Features
XEP accepts XSL-FOXSL Formatting Objects
XSL Formatting Objects, or XSL-FO, is a markup language for XML document formatting which is most often used to generate PDFs. XSL-FO is part of XSL , a set of W3C technologies designed for the transformation and formatting of XML data. The other parts of XSL are XSLT and XPath...
as input, as well as XML+XSLT
XSLT
XSLT is a declarative, XML-based language used for the transformation of XML documents. The original document is not changed; rather, a new document is created based on the content of an existing one. The new document may be serialized by the processor in standard XML syntax or in another format,...
. Its output formats are: PDF, PostScript
PostScript
PostScript is a dynamically typed concatenative programming language created by John Warnock and Charles Geschke in 1982. It is best known for its use as a page description language in the electronic and desktop publishing areas. Adobe PostScript 3 is also the worldwide printing and imaging...
, AFP
IBM Advanced Function Printing (AFP)
Advanced Function Printing is a document format originally defined by IBM to drive its printers and support the typical form printing on laser printers....
, PPML
PPML
PPML is an XML-based industry standard printer language for variable data printing defined by PODi. The industry-wide consortium of 13 companies was initially formed to create PPML, and now has more than 400 member companies.-Overview:PPML is an open, inter-operable, device-independent standard...
, XPS, HTML
HTML
HyperText Markup Language is the predominant markup language for web pages. HTML elements are the basic building-blocks of webpages....
, SVG, and internal XML-based format called XEPOUT.
XEP demonstrates conformance with XSL-FO Recommendation v1.0, a wide range of extensions, and support for a good subset of XSL 1.1 features.
Available font types, depending on the output format generator, are Type 1
PostScript fonts
PostScript fonts are outline font specifications developed by Adobe Systems for professional digital typesetting, which uses PostScript file format to encode font information.-History:...
, TrueType
TrueType
TrueType is an outline font standard originally developed by Apple Computer in the late 1980s as a competitor to Adobe's Type 1 fonts used in PostScript...
and OpenType
OpenType
OpenType is a format for scalable computer fonts. It was built on its predecessor TrueType, retaining TrueType's basic structure and adding many intricate data structures for prescribing typographic behavior...
, with the ability of embedding and subsetting.
Accepted images are most of flavors of raster graphics, SVG, EPS
Encapsulated PostScript
Encapsulated PostScript, or EPS, is a DSC-conforming PostScript document with additional restrictions which is intended to be usable as a graphics file format...
and PDF.
API
For integration XEP provides API in Java and examples covering a number of approaches such as SAX, JAXP and DOM.XEP has a flexible configuration, which allows running it concurrently in threads on huge input documents, but also in a small heap in diskless environments such as appservers.
Satellite software
For Windows users there exists a .NET.NET Framework
The .NET Framework is a software framework that runs primarily on Microsoft Windows. It includes a large library and supports several programming languages which allows language interoperability...
wrapper called XEPWin, and an accompanying .NET development kit with API in C#, VB
Visual Basic
Visual Basic is the third-generation event-driven programming language and integrated development environment from Microsoft for its COM programming model...
and ASP.NET
ASP.NET
ASP.NET is a Web application framework developed and marketed by Microsoft to allow programmers to build dynamic Web sites, Web applications and Web services. It was first released in January 2002 with version 1.0 of the .NET Framework, and is the successor to Microsoft's Active Server Pages ...
.
Satellite software includes EnMasse - a multiplexer of a grid of XEP engines, with simple networked API and examples in C
C (programming language)
C is a general-purpose computer programming language developed between 1969 and 1973 by Dennis Ritchie at the Bell Telephone Laboratories for use with the Unix operating system....
, Java, Perl
Perl
Perl is a high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming language. Perl was originally developed by Larry Wall in 1987 as a general-purpose Unix scripting language to make report processing easier. Since then, it has undergone many changes and revisions and become widely popular...
and Python
Python (programming language)
Python is a general-purpose, high-level programming language whose design philosophy emphasizes code readability. Python claims to "[combine] remarkable power with very clear syntax", and its standard library is large and comprehensive...
.