[xep-support] Re: CSS to PDF?

[Kevin Brown]

When asking that question you have to examine all of the choices of styles
of inputs you (may) have.

1) You have static HTML/XHTML with all styles inline in HTML5 style=""
attributes. As in I have this one XHTML file that I would like to convert
that may include images ...

A: That web page -- http://www.cloudformatter.com calls a web-based RenderX
engine with XHTML and inline styles with an XSL that converts it all to
XSL-FO behind the scenes.

2) You have static HTML/XHTML with styles that may exist in external CSS
files http://www.cloudformatter.com/css2pdf. As in I have this one XHTML
file and several CSS files and possibly external images ...

A: You could use node.js or other wrapper to a browser along with Javascript
to resolve the CSS into the HTML. Or ... wait a little bit and RenderX will
be announcing something along this lines soon.

3) You have dynamic content that is derived as a result of Javascript (like
the many examples showing charts like
http://www.cloudformatter.com/GoogleCharts). In this you could have all of
the above and then some, including such advanced concepts as @media print
directives in CSS to control how you wish content to appear in print versus
screen ....

A: If you do not plan to use the browser to initiate the rendering, then you
need to wrapper the Javascript and libraries with something like Node so
that it all executes and then as said in answer #2, you then use the
Javascript also to execute the formatting of the page by sending it to
RenderX.

I would note that while all the pages above are RenderX at the formatting
core, there is nothing really *new* here. This uses either RenderX's SOAP or
REST based interface that has been around for some time. 
It is not doing anything different that taking in XML (ok, XHTML ... but
certainly not malformed, rotten old HTML) and converting it with XSL to make
XSL FO.  You just don't know it is as you are giving it XHTML and CSS.

At that site is also Nimbus, which leverages the web browser *and* CSS as an
XSL designer, creating XSL for use in dynamic composition using the above
concepts. http://www.cloudformatter.com/Nimbus this is pure XHTML and CSS
... but better as it is to XSL for XSL FO for variable style documents in
which you can also include things like xsl:if, xsl:choose, xsl:for-each and
xsl:value-of logic.

Kevin Brown
RenderX 

-----Original Message-----
From: Xep-support [mailto:xep-support-bounces at renderx.com] On Behalf Of Mark
Giffin
Sent: Thursday, August 27, 2015 9:18 PM
To: 'RenderX Community Support List' <xep-support at renderx.com>
Subject: [xep-support] CSS to PDF?

Hi,

Is there any way to use XEP to convert HTML or XHTML with CSS to PDF?

Thanks,
Mark

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