[Xmlgraphics-fop Wiki] Update of "PclOutput" by JeremiasMaerki

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The following page has been changed by JeremiasMaerki:
http://wiki.apache.org/xmlgraphics-fop/PclOutput

The comment on the change is:
Some updates

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  A possible approach could be to start with the second approach above and then decide whether to add special handling of FO text in the renderer (by overriding some methods implemented by Java2DRenderer).
  
+ == Limitations making a full, native implementation difficult ==
+ 
+  * All graphics have to be pre-rotated, pre-scaled and pre-translated. Only basic coordinate system setup for HP GL/2 image windows.
+  * Clipping only in HP GL/2 and only for unrotated rectangular areas.
+  * Pen styles quite different from Java2D, PDF and PS. Dash arrays are problematic.
+  * Java2D's dithering capabilities are limited. JAI enables high-quality dithering.
+  * In PCL5, only black is available as pen color. Only PCL5c supports pen colors.
+  * No control over bitmap transparency. Raster graphics are always transparent/additive.
+ 
+ The limitations usually mean a quality reduction which can be avoided by rendering borders and all graphics to bitmaps.
+ 
  = What others did =
  
  The PCL renderer from FOP 0.20.5 only uses PCL commands, default fonts and does not support SVG. In FOP Trunk we now support different reference-orientations which starts to make the renderer more complicated. Full PCL support will require some level of SVG support, too.
  
  A Windows printer driver for the HP LaserJet 4 may output most text as bitmap images. That probably depends on the font download setting, but it shows that it is quite feasible to paint text as bitmaps, too. However, this is probably relatively inefficient because it uses a lot of processing power in the JVM and makes the print files quite large.
  
+ = PCL Tools =
+ 
+ Here are some PCL tools I've tried. If anyone knows of any additional (free) ones, please add them here.
+ 
+ == CTI Downloader ==
+ 
+ http://www.cyrtech.de/
+ 
+ Very good and free tool for working with PCL. Ships with a Windows binary for GhostPCL. Has a PCL decoder.
+ 
+ GhostPCL is generally quite good for converting PCL files but there are little issues like unsupported line caps and it produces huge, slow-displaying PostScript files from the PCL files.
+ 
+ == PCL2PDF from Visual Software ==
+ 
+ http://www.visual.co.uk/pcl2pdf.asp
+ 
+ Evaluation version with a stamp on each page. I tried the Windows command-line version. Small PDFs, but quality is bad.
+ 

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