Prince is a batch formatter for converting XML into PDF by applying Cascading Style Sheets (CSS).
Prince prints any XML document, with special support for XHTML, SVG, and DocBook, that may be used in combination with other XML languages.
Here are some key features of "Prince":
Print any XML document:
· Unlike many other formatters, Prince can print any XML document. Because Prince does not rely on proprietary markup, you have the freedom to use whatever tags are right for you.
· Prince supports DTDs and DTD catalogs that can define entities and default attributes. The support for external XML entities enables you to subdivide large documents for convenient management.
The power of Cascading Style Sheets:
· Prince has strong support for Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). CSS is a widely used style sheet language which has become very popular on the web. It is flexible, easy to learn and simple to use.
· The use of CSS encourages the separation of content and style, helping you to keep your documents free from clutter and promoting the reuse of content and style sheets.
Print XHTML web content:
· Prince includes a default style sheet for XHTML, the XML language of the World Wide Web. Prince makes it easy to print your web content and produce professional-looking results.
Advanced Layout Features:
Prince has an advanced layout engine with support for:
· Page headers/footers, page numbering and duplex printing
· Tables with automatic layout and running headers/footers
· Lists with customisable bullets or numbers
· Multi-column layout and floating blocks
· Automatic numbering of lists, headings, sections or figures
Advanced Graphics Support:
· Prince supports a rich subset of Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG), the format of choice for graphics such as clip-art, diagrams, maps, charts and graphs.
· Prince supports several standard image formats (JPEG, PNG, TIFF, GIF), making it easy to embed pictures and photos in your documents.
Style sheet for DocBook:
· Prince comes with a default style sheet for DocBook, one of the most popular XML vocabularies for technical documents. The style is easy to change or extend with your own custom style sheets.
Command-line interface for batch formatting:
· Prince provides a command line interface on Windows and Linux, allowing it to be called easily from batch files and shell scripts or integrated with other programs to form document publishing pipelines.
Graphical User Interface:
· On Windows, Prince provides a Graphical User Interface that can be used as a user-friendly document conversion tool or for testing purposes.
Limitations:
· The demonstration version of Prince is fully functional, but the first PDF page generated is promotional.
· This version can be used for demonstration purposes and for academic dissertations.
What`s New in This Release: [ read full changelog ]
Fonts and Unicode Support:
· Added support for the WOFF font file format.
· Added support for OpenType extension lookups needed for kerning with the Arno Pro font.
· Added support for the OpenType GDEF table, needed by some Arabic and Indic fonts.
· Added support for OpenType positioning rules with vertical placement.
· Added new command-line option --no-artificial-fonts to disable synthesised bold and italic fonts.
· Improved handling of symbolic fonts with no Unicode charmap, such as Wingdings and barcode fonts.
· Added support for Unicode characters up to U+30000.
· Right-to-left and left-to-right bidi marks are now treated as non-printing characters.
· Fixed bug where hyphenation could prevent ligature formation.
· Fixed bug where punctuation could interfere with kerning and other OpenType features.
· Fixed bug affecting some OpenType chaining contextual substitutions.
· Fixed bug where non-embedded fonts could still be subset.
· Fixed bug affecting unquoted font-family names that include numbers.
· Fixed b...
