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Posted to fop-users@xmlgraphics.apache.org by Chris Pratt <ch...@planetpratt.com> on 2004/02/03 20:33:56 UTC
PDF Forms
I'm using FOP 0.20.5 and I've coded myself into a corner. We generate some
rather large PDF files using fop (lists of every eye doctor in California
for example), which can be very processor and very memory intensive. To
limit the overhead I wrote a caching scheme that caches the complete PDF
files for easy re-use. Worked really well until the powers that be decided
that each of the PDF's needed to be personalized.
Looking around for an alternative to just removing the caching, I found PDF
Forms which would probably do the job. I don't expect that FOP has any
ability to fill in forms of already generated PDF Forms, but I was hoping
that it might have the ability to generate them. Does anyone have a clue
how I might go about this? Or maybe an altogether better way of solving the
problem? Thanks.
(*Chris*)
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RE: PDF Forms
Posted by "Andreas L. Delmelle" <a_...@pandora.be>.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Chris Pratt [mailto:chrisp@planetpratt.com]
>
<snip />
> ... discovered that I basically have a table that spans nearly the
> entire document, because of the whole mess with keeps only being supported
> in tables. I'm in the process of breaking up the table which should
> hopefully speed things up. But even at 2 pages per second, the 125 page
Another tip: split it up, if you can, over a number of 2-3 paged
page-sequences. Should work splendid in 0.20.5.
Cheers,
Andreas
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Re: PDF Forms
Posted by Chris Pratt <ch...@planetpratt.com>.
J.Pietschmann wrote:
> Doing XForms is ambitious, start with a subset (a *small* subset).
>
> Yet, I urge you to track down the performance problems with your
> FO first. I usually get 2 pages per second on a Pentium 166 and
> an old SDK, and up to 15 pages per second on a more modern machine.
> Some big iron should be able to do better than. 1.5 pages per second.
> Check whether you have problems with big tables (tables with lots
> of cells), and perhaps get the fixes form CVS.
I agree and that is definitely where I'm starting. I did discover in my
search an old message (from you I believe) about large tables being a bad
idea and discovered that I basically have a table that spans nearly the
entire document, because of the whole mess with keeps only being supported
in tables. I'm in the process of breaking up the table which should
hopefully speed things up. But even at 2 pages per second, the 125 page
document will take over a minute to produce, so I think some additional
optimization will be required.
(*Chris*)
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Re: PDF Forms
Posted by "J.Pietschmann" <j3...@yahoo.de>.
Chris Pratt wrote:
> I have had no luck in locating the extension, but it got me thinking about
> how it might be implemented. How hard would it be (taking in mind that I am
> an experienced Java coder, but have never looked at the FOP source) to add
> an fo:instream-foreign-object implementation (similar to the Batik SVG
> support) that could process the XForms specification
> [http://www.w3.org/TR/2003/REC-xforms-20031014/], or maybe a subset, and do
> the right thing in the PDF file?
Doing XForms is ambitious, start with a subset (a *small* subset).
Yet, I urge you to track down the performance problems with your
FO first. I usually get 2 pages per second on a Pentium 166 and
an old SDK, and up to 15 pages per second on a more modern machine.
Some big iron should be able to do better than. 1.5 pages per second.
Check whether you have problems with big tables (tables with lots
of cells), and perhaps get the fixes form CVS.
J.Pietschmann
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Re: PDF Forms
Posted by Chris Pratt <ch...@planetpratt.com>.
J. Pietschmann wrote:
> Chris Pratt wrote:
> > I'm using FOP 0.20.5 and I've coded myself into a corner. We generate
some
> > rather large PDF files using fop (lists of every eye doctor in
California
> > for example), which can be very processor and very memory intensive. To
> > limit the overhead I wrote a caching scheme that caches the complete PDF
> > files for easy re-use. Worked really well until the powers that be
decided
> > that each of the PDF's needed to be personalized.
> >
> > Looking around for an alternative to just removing the caching, I found
PDF
> > Forms which would probably do the job. I don't expect that FOP has any
> > ability to fill in forms of already generated PDF Forms, but I was
hoping
> > that it might have the ability to generate them. Does anyone have a
clue
> > how I might go about this? Or maybe an altogether better way of solving
the
> > problem? Thanks.
> > (*Chris*)
>
> There was an extension floating around two years ago which allowed
> to inject raw PDF through FOP into the result. The originator used
> this basically to create PDF forms. Of course, you'll have to invest
> some time to grok the PDF spec. Check the FOP list archive.
>
> Alternatively, you can try to postprocess pregenerated PDF with
> another tool. Check the FOP website (FAQ) for hints.
I have had no luck in locating the extension, but it got me thinking about
how it might be implemented. How hard would it be (taking in mind that I am
an experienced Java coder, but have never looked at the FOP source) to add
an fo:instream-foreign-object implementation (similar to the Batik SVG
support) that could process the XForms specification
[http://www.w3.org/TR/2003/REC-xforms-20031014/], or maybe a subset, and do
the right thing in the PDF file?
(*Chris*)
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Re: PDF Forms
Posted by "J.Pietschmann" <j3...@yahoo.de>.
Chris Pratt wrote:
> I'm using FOP 0.20.5 and I've coded myself into a corner. We generate some
> rather large PDF files using fop (lists of every eye doctor in California
> for example), which can be very processor and very memory intensive. To
> limit the overhead I wrote a caching scheme that caches the complete PDF
> files for easy re-use. Worked really well until the powers that be decided
> that each of the PDF's needed to be personalized.
>
> Looking around for an alternative to just removing the caching, I found PDF
> Forms which would probably do the job. I don't expect that FOP has any
> ability to fill in forms of already generated PDF Forms, but I was hoping
> that it might have the ability to generate them. Does anyone have a clue
> how I might go about this? Or maybe an altogether better way of solving the
> problem? Thanks.
> (*Chris*)
There was an extension floating around two years ago which allowed
to inject raw PDF through FOP into the result. The originator used
this basically to create PDF forms. Of course, you'll have to invest
some time to grok the PDF spec. Check the FOP list archive.
Alternatively, you can try to postprocess pregenerated PDF with
another tool. Check the FOP website (FAQ) for hints.
J.Pietschmann
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