zopyx.convert 1.1.0

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

• csstoxslfo (included)

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

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

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

• BeautifulSoup

• ElementTree

Installation

• install zopyx.convert either using easy_install or by downloading the sources from the Python Cheeseshop

• 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 yourr 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 = Convert('/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)

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:

1.1.0 (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