Configure an External FO Processor Sean Wheller seanwhe@yahoo.com This article explains how to install an External FO Processor in <oXygen/> XML Editor 2 or higher. The Apache Formatting Objects Processor (FOP), bundled with the <oXygen/> XML Editor, is an XSL Rendering engine or print formatter application written in Java. FOP enables XSL-FO formatted files to be transformed to the following formats: PDF, PCL, PS, SVG, XML (area tree representation), Print, AWT, MIF and TXT. FOP does not currently implement all the objects and properties detailed in the XSL-FO Version 1.0 W3C Recommendation. The reason for this is that print formatting is a very complex and large subject, as is reflected by the size and complexity of the XSL-FO Recommendation itself. So complex, that the W3C itself defines and recognizes three levels of conformance against which FO Processors can be measured for compliance with the Recommendation. As a result each of the FO Processors, available to the market, implement the Recommendation to a greater or lesser degree. Commercially available FO Processors like XEP generally implement a greater portion of the recomendation. To accommodate the use of FO Processors other than the Built-in Apache FOP, or to enable use of a more current FOP version, the <oXygen/> XML Editor has been built with the ability to define what are called "External FO Processors". External because they are installed separately to the <oXygen/> XML Editor and will generally create a separate thread when executed by Oxygen. In this document I will explain how to install and configure an External FO Processor. The processor we will be installing is the Apache FOP. If you are installing a different FO Processor, please exchange names, syntax and parameters to match your application. Also, my operating system of choice is Windows. So if you have one of the Linux operating systems please lookout for the notes. They will point out any differences that may apply to you. Before you proceed, please ensure that you have copied and installed the new FO processor as per the instructions of the vendor. It's also a good idea to test that it works from the command line or by using a utility that may have been provided by the vendor. Start Oxygen. From the main menu select Options Preferences . The Preferences dialog is displayed. From the list of preference categories select the FO processors option. The FO processors options are displayed. Click the New button. The Command line dialog is displayed. Complete the fields as per , then click OK. The new FO Processor is listed in the External FO processors list. Click the OK button to save your changes and return to the editor. In the "Edit scenario" dialog click on "FO Proessor" tab. Check the "Perform FO Processing" checkbox option. Select the created external processor from the "Processor" combo box. Test the new FO Processor by running the transformation. The processing messages and results will be shown in the Message Pane of the editor. If you want to process documents with references to PNG format graphics please see . Field Description Name The name that will be displayed in the list of available FOP processors on the FOP tab of the Transforming Configuration dialog. Description The description of the FO processor displayed in the External FO processors list. Working directory The directory in which the intermediate and final results of the processing will be stored. If an output file destination is specified this will override the working directory. To specify the current directory enter a period ". ". Alternatively use the Browse button to define the path. Command line Specify the command line that will start the FO processor. This command is typically specific to each processor, please refer to your processor documentation for instructions on how to run as a "Standalone Application". With Apache FOP a shell script called fop.sh is provided. Execute this script by first calling a shell like BASH, then pass it the options you require (see ). bash ../pathto/fop-0.93/fop.sh -fo ${fo} -${method} ${out} For Windows the corresponding file to fop.sh is fop.bat. This file can be called directly, there is no need to call command. A Command Prompt session will be automatically created when <oXygen/> executes fop.bat. Here is an example: c:\pathto\fop-0.93\fop.bat -fo ${fo} -${method} ${out} Jimi is a class library for managing images. If your FO Processor does not bundle the JIMI class library and you wish to process documents that reference to graphics in PNG format, download a copy from the Sun Java Web Site. Extract the downloaded archive and locate a file called JimiProClasses.zip. Copy this file to your FO Processors library directory. For Apache FOP this directory is fop-0.93/lib/. Rename JimiProClasses.zip to JimiProClasses.jar On Windows rename JimiProClasses.zip to Jimi-1.0.jar