CHIVE Apoc XSL-FO FAQ

Does Apoc support SVG?

Unfortunately Apoc does not support SVG. Apoc's support for image formats includes WMF/EMF metafiles, which are both vector formats. Also refer to 'What image formats does Apoc support?' below.

You could use the excellent SVG# project [1] to render an SVG document to disk/memory and include the image in an FO document to be rendered by Apoc.

[1] http://sourceforge.net/projects/svgdomcsharp/

Is Apoc XSL-FO a port of Apache FOP to .NET?

Yes. It is based on version 0.20.4 of FOP and does not follow FOP's subsequent progress.

Apoc consists of 100% C# managed code. It is not just .NET integration, but a full port of FOP to the .NET environment. Thanks to the efficiency of the .NET implementation, and to some performance improvements we have made, Apoc is much faster than FOP.

Does Apoc have arbitrary font support?

Apoc XSL-FO 2.0 supports all TrueType and TrueType flavoured OpenType fonts. It can therefore render text in any language supported by the chosen font (though only left-to-right, top-to-bottom writing mode is supported).

What is your level of support for formatting object "...."?

The Conformance Document has details of support for specific formatting objects. If you need further information, or cannot find the information you require, please email info@uk.chive.com.

Does Apoc XSL-FO support other output formats?

Version 2.0 of Apoc XSL-FO only supports PDF output.

Does Apoc support Unicode? For example, can I use special characters like ohmega?

Apoc XSL-FO can handle any code point supported by Unicode and by the current font in use.

What image formats does Apoc support?

Internally Apoc uses the .NET System.Drawing namespace to handle external graphics. This means that Apoc supports all the formats listed here.

Are there performance issues involved with using images?

Version 2.0 of Apoc contains a fix designed to improve image performance.

Where possible, we recommend using JPEG images as Apoc is optimised to read these image files.

Can I use a barcode font with Apoc?

Apoc XSL-FO 2.0 supports all TrueType and TrueType flavoured OpenType fonts. It can render barcodes simply by referencing one of the many available barcode fonts.

Do you have any VB samples for Apoc XSL-FO?

VB samples are available for download from here.

Is Apoc suitable for handling large amounts of data?

How well Apoc handles large amounts of data depends on the complexity of the XSL-FO. XSL-FO of a "reasonably typical" complexity should see a processing time of 1 second per page.

Is there a way to speed up the processing time of a large job?

Avoiding long running page sequences is the most effective method used to speed up processing time. Each new page sequence should be started as soon as possible. Many reports have natural page breaks, such as the chapters, records or invoices.

Is Apoc XSL-FO in any way Java-based; are there any external dependencies bar .NET?

No.