FOP vs. iText

[Velika Srbija]

Should I go with FOP or iText? Any expiriences?

[Lasse Koskela]

iText is probably easier to get started with, if you're familiar with Java. XSL-FO is rather complex...

[Karthikeyan Rajendraprasad]

Go for itext..

[William Brogden]

I have been using FOP for the last month on a major project. In this project, XML data is rearranged to create PDF documents of 200 - 300 pages.

FOP is not a complete implementation of XSL-FO 1.0 - basic level. It is pretty complete but has holes that have tripped me up frequently. Fortunately there is a compliance document that says which features are done. There is also an active fop-users mailing list.

A cursory examination of the iText site didn't reveal any comparable list of compliance with the standard - if you find one, please post the location.

Incidently, Holman's book, "Definitive XSL-FO" is a great help, but if you get it, go to Kinkos and get it rebound in a lay-flat spiral binding because you will constantly be turning back and forth between the sections.
Bill
[ March 11, 2005: Message edited by: William Brogden ]

[Velika Srbija]

Seems that FOP is better for building document templates, but I'll rather try iText. I have to prepare PDF document with images generated by servlets, so it seems that iText is a good solution.?

[Jeanne Boyarsky]

Velika,
Personally, I use iText. If you only need to render in PDF, I think iText is a good place to start. If you need different formats, or think you are likely to, FOP will make that job easier.

[Balaji Loganathan]

Originally posted by Velika Srbija:
I have to prepare PDF document with images generated by servlets, so it seems that iText is a good solution.?

If you could explain more about where does the images comes from ? in what format?, what is the part of servlet here and so on... that would really help us to see further and make a choice between iText or fop.

[sanmao yahoo]

If you are using simple PDF stuff like not tie in security and access-ablities issues, using FOP is not a bad choice. Might be following article can help a bit.

http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/library/x-ospdf