Latest topics for the forum "XSLfast Forum"

XSLfast 4.1 is coming soon, what's new?

Victor Krapivin — GMT

Usability: massive changes

First, we made really big changes in [b]user interface[/b].

The most important are:

welcome Office 2007/2010 look and feel: ribbons
new smart guides. Once you dragging / resizing, you see how close it to other elements, where it bordered / aligned
support of multiple monitors. Now you able to move tree / inspector / preview / page sequences navigator to 2nd monitor and leave editing place at main one
preview on the fly. You changing layout and you see (in preview window) how your layout really looks
completions in editor windows. Start typing text or Xpath expression and click ctrl+space to see what's near
new layout preview: no more Acrobat Reader necessary
external tools are gone: now XSLfast able to detect everything automatically
filters / groupings are user friendly: hinting depending on attached XML file
you can fill table contents from one open editor dialog, by navigating arrows at right-bottom corner

and more and more, beginning from frames' placement and ending with drag and drop from Finder/ Explorer / Dolphin.

New functions

Of course, we adding [b]new and new features[/b], and our integration with XEP and AHFormatter allows to use customized extensions from both products in UI. But not only this. The major new features are:

now you can use your templates as functions in your XSL code, XSLfast will wrap variables around calls automatically
side floats
massive enhancements for pivot tables
XSL-FO documents are more strict and conforms to XEP validation
links can be not only textual but as images also
more IF clauses, for table columns in particular
added way to compare layout versions with user friendly difference report
added support of fo:marker
more robust support of DTD external entities and references

and more.

Adobe Reader and Output Folder

gmbehr — GMT

I have both Adobe Reader and Adobe Acrobat loaded on my computer. When I process, it tries to load the PDF file using the external setting and I get an error saying "Please change the path to PDF reader".

Neither of the settings below work:
C:/Program Files/Adobe/Reader 9.0/Reader/AcroRd32.exe
C:/Program Files/Adobe/Acrobat 9.0/Acrobat/Acrobat.exe

I then need to go to the output folder to open manually.

Also, how do you set the output folder destination? It currently points to XSLFast 3.1.26 which isn't even loaded anymore (4.0). I've been through all the preferences trying to find it.

Thanks!

George

Generate one PDF file with different printing requirement from one set of XSL and XML

chaonngy — GMT

Dear Victor,

I would like to know can I use one set of XSL and XML to generate one PDF file with different printing requirement via processing by XSLfast? That means, one PDF file consists of different records. Each record have different printing requirement. For example, first record require 4 printer bin trays for printing, second record require 2 printer bin trays for printing. If yes, I would like to know how I can do it.

Would you please reply to me regarding to the above enquiry. Thank you!

Current Date

lonnie — GMT

How do you add the current date to the form?

Antenna House Formatter and XSL Fast

chaonngy — GMT

Dear all,

I would like to know how can I use Antenna House Formatter instead of XSL Fast's FOP under XSLFast 4.0. Refer to the following hyperlinke, I know RenderX can do it. But how about Antenna House Formatter? Any buddies know the setting and teach me how can I do it? Thanks!!!

http://www.xslfast.com/online-help/installingotherrenderers.htm

tables and absolute placement

lonnie — GMT

Hi,

I'm in the process of evaluating XSLFAST and I'm having some problems with tables. When I insert a table in the middle of the form and absolute placement is true only one row will print. When absolute placement if false all the rows print at the top of the form. I added a text box in the middle of the page hoping this will keep my table in place but that didn't work either. Is this a bug in the trail version?

Optional title page

gmbehr — GMT

I have 2 title pages (fax cover, statement summary), and a main page. There are times that I need to exclude the fax cover sheet. A switch in the XML will drive this, so ideally I'm using an XSL:IF statement to print that page or not. Can I make that XSL setting in XSLFast? If so how?

If not, is my only solution to hack XSL after XSLFast generates?

Thanks!

George

How to prevent content from flowing in second column

Roland Vonk — GMT

Hi there,

I have the following issue.

I have a 2-column layout.
The content does not fully fit on one page. I have a few lines on the next page.
These few line are spread evenly over the 2 columns.
After these few columns, a new page starts.
So I end up with an almost empty page, 2 lines on the left and 1 on the right.

Is there any way to prevent this behaviour? I would like the content to stay in the left column, but it probably wont do so because there is a page break just beneath the content.

Thanks for a response!

Mixed 2-column and 1-column layout

Roland Vonk — GMT

Hi there,

Thanks a lot for the response on my previous question, it fixed the thing! Now i've got a new question.

I need to make a layout which consists of both pages with no column and pages with 2 columns. The first one is needed for short chapters (mostly 1-page) with not a lot of content, the second we will use for larger chapters with lots of content. Which layout should be used will be determined in the XML (an attribute on a chapter node specifying which layout should be used for that chapter).

I have no clue on how to do such a thing with xslfast. I suspect the answer (if there is one) will be to use the multi-layout manager in some way. If so, I would like to know how?

And if i have to use the multi-layout manager, is it also possible to generate the full xsl of the multi-template?

Thanks again,

Roland Vonk

Iterate over nodes

Roland Vonk — GMT

Hi there,

I'm trying to iterate over nodes in a table. For this purpose, I'm using break-level in a table. However, I now want to print some attributes of a series of child nodes that each have a different name.
Example:

I want to print the "label" and "price" attributes, in 4 separate rows.

So the break level on the row should be /*

However, the dialog in which i specify the break level only allows me to select the node, I cannot type /* anywhere (as far as I can see).

How should I do this within XSL Fast? I know how to do it in XSL or in FO, but I want to use the layout facilities in xsl fast.

Thanks for your response,

Roland

Creating different content on different pages

os_185 — GMT

Hi forum,

I'm pretty helpless right now...
I'm looking for a solution to have different contents on different pages, example:

Page 1:

Header
Some dynamic range
Footer

Page 2-n:

Different Header than Page 1
Same dynamic range
Different Footer

I have absolutley no clue how to set this up.
I tried it to check the value of page-number so that in dependence of the site number the content will change.
But I learned that theres no way to get used to it because page-number is the last point that will be generated before the PDF will be created so theres no choice to use it as possibility.

The document itself got an uncertain amount of pages and only page 1 differs from the other ones.

Somebody have a solution?

I already tried to make a copy of the first template and switch it with another layout via multi-layout manager but this wont work by now.

Maybe theres a possibility in later versions - I'm using v. 1.3.

Hope someone might help.

Thanks,

Olli

XSLFast 4 not honouring linebreaks

jstride — GMT

We're trying to upgrade our instances to XSLFast 4 but any fields in templates that were created in XSLFast 3 where the XML has line breaks lose the line breaks when you regenerate them in XSLFast 4. The PDF preview output looks fine - i.e.

[code]An Address
On Multiple
Lines[/code]

looks like that above, but when we use them for real they come out as

[code]An Address On Multiple Lines[/code]

Have you any ideas/pointers?

Issue Generating PDF on OS X

jstride — GMT

Hi,

I have ver 3.1.23 install on OS X and cannot successfully generate PDFs. From the log files I get:

01.12.2010 16:33:44 PDF = /Users/xxx/Desktop/demo.pdf
01.12.2010 16:33:44 [INFO] Using org.apache.xerces.parsers.SAXParser as SAX2 Parser
01.12.2010 16:33:44 [INFO] Using org.apache.xerces.parsers.SAXParser as SAX2 Parser
01.12.2010 16:33:44 [INFO] setting up fonts
01.12.2010 16:33:44 [ERROR] unknown font Times New Roman,normal,normal so defaulted font to any
01.12.2010 16:33:44 [ERROR] unknown font Times New Roman,normal,normal so defaulted font to any
01.12.2010 16:33:44 Trying to print document: /Users/xxx/Desktop/demo.pdf
01.12.2010 16:33:44 PT 593: <'open /Applications/Preview.app' '/Users/xxx/Desktop/demo.pdf'>

but no file is created or opened.

OpenType fonts and XSLfast

Victor Krapivin — GMT

Often, we have questions how to let XSLfast work with such OpenType font `Foo` (Foo.OTF/Foo.OTC).

The XSLfast is pure java program and it ready for OpenType fonts support; but it disabled permanently.

Why?

First, XSLfast needs to let you operate with it in GUI (menus, text boxes, etc). And here we have big problem with Java: prior to further release of Java 7, Sun Java have no support of OpenType fonts yet. It are not implemented. So, whole Java API have no possibility to operate with OpenType fonts. And as result, XSLfast also cannot let you type such texts with OpenType fonts selected. Boom.

We're waiting for Java 7 SE; and once it will be released we'll make new major version of XSLfast with OpenType support enabled.

User Registration, Spam and Message Approval

Stephan Albers — GMT

From October to November 2009, we had massive problems with spam in our forums. Therefore, we did not answer the forum questions for a couple of weeks. Sorry for that.

We deleted and cleaned up the forums, but our hope, that this would reduce the spamming activity was wrong. In fact the number of spam posts increased to nearly 10.000 before we finally gave up.

We now:
- [b]require registration[/b], so you cannot post anonymously anymore
- we [b]moderate all threads[/b] and all forum messages.

We try to review and approve the forum messages on a daily basis, however depending on our other activities, it sometimes may take longer. I hope that this is in the interest of all users and that this will improve the quality of the forums.

Stephan Albers for the Forum Team of
GrailsFlow, Weceem and XSLfast