zopyx.convert 1.1.8

A Python interface to XSL-FO libraries (Conversion HTML to PDF, RTF, DOCX, WML and ODT)

The zopyx.convert package helps you to convert HTML to PDF, RTF, ODT, DOCX and WML using XSL-FO technology.

Requirements

• Java 1.5.0 or higher (FOP 0.94 requires Java 1.6 or higher)

• csstoxslfo (included)

• XFC-4.0 (XMLMind) for ODT, RTF, DOCX and WML support (if needed)

• XINC 2.0 (Lunasil) for PDF support (commercial)

• or FOP 0.94 (Apache project) for PDF support (free)

• BeautifulSoup (will be installed automatically through easy_install. See Installation.)

• ElementTree (will be installed automatically through easy_install. See Installation.)

Installation

• install zopyx.convert either using easy_install or by downloading the sources from the Python Cheeseshop. This will install automatically the Beautifulsoup and Elementree modules if necessary.

• the environment variable $XFC_DIR must be set and point to the root of your XFC installation directory

• the environment variable $XINC_HOME must be set and to point to the root of your XINC installation directory

• the environment variable $FOP_HOME must be set and point to the root of your FOP installation directory

Supported platforms

Windows, Unix

Subversion repository

• http://svn-public.zopyx.com/viewvc/python-projects/zopyx.convert/trunk/

Usage

Some examples from the Python command-line:

from zopyx.convert import Converter
C = Converter('/path/to/some/file.html')
pdf_filename = C('pdf')         # using XINC
pdf2_filename = C('pdf2')       # using FOP
rtf_filename = C('rtf')
pdt_filename = C('odt')
wml_filename = C('wml')
docx_filename = C('docx')

A very simple command-line converter is also available:

xslfo-convert --format rtf --output foo.rtf sample.html

xslfo-convert has a –test option that will convert some sample HTML. If everything is ok then you should see something like that:

>xslfo-convert --test
Entering testmode
pdf: /tmp/tmpuOb37m.html -> /tmp/tmpuOb37m.pdf
rtf: /tmp/tmpuOb37m.html -> /tmp/tmpuOb37m.rtf
docx: /tmp/tmpuOb37m.html -> /tmp/tmpuOb37m.docx
odt: /tmp/tmpuOb37m.html -> /tmp/tmpuOb37m.odt
wml: /tmp/tmpuOb37m.html -> /tmp/tmpuOb37m.wml
pdf: /tmp/tmpZ6PGo9.html -> /tmp/tmpZ6PGo9.pdf
rtf: /tmp/tmpZ6PGo9.html -> /tmp/tmpZ6PGo9.rtf
docx: /tmp/tmpZ6PGo9.html -> /tmp/tmpZ6PGo9.docx
odt: /tmp/tmpZ6PGo9.html -> /tmp/tmpZ6PGo9.odt
wml: /tmp/tmpZ6PGo9.html -> /tmp/tmpZ6PGo9.wml

How zopyx.convert works internally

• The source HTML file is converted to XHTML using mxTidy

• the XHTML file is converted to FO using the great “csstoxslfo” converter written by Werner Donne.

• the FO file is passed either to the external XINC or XFC converter to generated the desired output format

• all converters are based on Java technology make the conversion solution highly portable across operating system (including Windows)

Known issues

• If you are using zopyx.convert together with FOP: use the latest FOP 0.94 only. Don’t use any packaged FOP version like the one from MacPorts which is known to be broken.

• Ensure that you have read the csstoxslfo documentation. csstoxslfo has several requirements about the HTML markup. Don’t expect that it is the ultimate HTML converter. Any questions regarding the necessary markup are documented in the csstoxslfo documentation and will not be answered.

Author

zopyx.convert was written by Andreas Jung for ZOPYX Ltd. & Co. KG, Tuebingen, Germany.

License

zopyx.convert is published under the Lesser GNU Public License V 2.1 (LGPL 2.1). See LICENSE.txt.

Contact

ZOPYX Ltd. & Co. KG

c/o Andreas Jung,

Charlottenstr. 37/1

D-72070 Tuebingen, Germany

E-mail: info at zopyx dot com

Web: http://www.zopyx.com

Changes:

1.1.8 (26.06.2008)

• changed logging levels

• reorganized files

1.1.7 (20.06.2008)

• better support for csstoxslfo commandline options

1.1.6 (19.04.2008)

• call ‘fop’ using bash

• better logger configuration

• minor code cleanup

1.1.5 (01.03.2008)

• updated documentation

1.1.4 (05.02.2008)

• remove duplicate ID attributes

1.1.3 (31.01.2008)

• clearified Java requirements for FOP

1.1.2 (22.01.2008)

• removed some nasty debugging code

1.1.1 (22.01.2008)

• supporting FOP on Windows

1.1.0 (20.01.2008)

• support for free FOP PDF converter

1.0.6 (14.10.2007)

• html2fo: added workaround for generated FO code for PRE tags

1.0.5 (05.10.2007)

• minor bugfixes

1.0.4 (05.10.2007)

• Windows support added

1.0.3 (04.10.2007)

• passing -Duser.language=en to java in order to prevent corrupted FO code caused by locales

1.0.2 (03.10.2007)

• bugfix

1.0.1 (03.10.2007)

• added –test option to command-line frontend

1.0.0 (30.09.2007)

• update to css2xslfo V 1.5.0

• official 1.0.0 release

0.5.0 (09.09.2007)

• replaced mxTidy related code with the BeautifulSoup module (no longer requires any compiling)

• html2fo checks the existence of images

0.4.9 (25.07.2007)

• support for utidy lib (which is the preferred tidy library). Using mx.Tidy only as fallback

0.4.8 (unreleased)

• unreleased

0.4.7 (08.07.2007)

• reSTified documentation

0.4.6 (08.07.2007)

• fixes in availableFormats()

0.4.5 (07.07.2007)

• various FO fixes

0.4.4 (06.07.2007)

• using logging module

0.4.3 (05.07.2007)

• html2fo: using ElementTree for most FO modifications

0.4.2 (30.06.2007)

• converting page-break-after: always back into break-after: page

0.4.1 (24.06.2007)

• various fixes

0.4.0 (24.06.2007)

• added zope interfaces

• converters are now classes

• added unittests

0.3.1 (18.06.2007)

• html2fo() and the converter constructor got a new ‘encoding’ parameter in order to specify the input encoding of the HTML file. This parameter will be passed down to Tidy in order to perform a proper conversion of non-ascii characters.

0.3.0 (unreleased)

• using subprocess module of Python

• new Convert() class for high-level XSLFO access

• logger added

• better checks for XINC, XFC

• updated documentation

0.2.0 (16.06.2007)

• PDF support added

• command line interface added

• mxTidy integration

0.1.0 (16.06.2007)

• initial release