Summary
If you have XML data, you can start using XF Rendering Server
to generate even the most complex publications.
XF Rendering Server can use visual templates designed in
XF Designer as well as standard XSL stylesheets to present
your XML data in a multitude of output formats.
The engine can process XSL-FO 1.1 and HTML input,
and can also process Word 2003 (WordML) and
Word 2007 (DocX) input.
A huge set of extensions covers Barcodes, Charts,
Geolocation Maps, Rich Media (Flash, movies, 3D
objects), Forms, Document Rights and interactivity,
Public Key Signatures, multipart document assembly and more.
The Ecrion Document Production Solution
XF Rendering Server can also be used as part of the Ecrion Document Production Solution:
when you don't have all data as XML or is needed to start from scratch, you can benefit from the seamless integration
with our Data Aggregation Server (DAS).
DAS will
generate the XML needed by XF Rendering Server on the fly, from multiple databases,
including Oracle, Microsoft SQL Servers, MySQL, Postgres; it can also use for this
purpose XML files or Excel Spreadsheets, or retrieve data from
Web Services .
You can
visually describe how the data is being pulled from the databases and the rules
and
calculations that are being applied to this data with
Data Architect.
Output Formats
Our solution is a true multichannel publishing tool.
From one input, you can automatically generate web media or print-ready documents.
The list of output formats includes:
- PDF, Postscript, AFP (MO:DCA)
and XPS for email, printing or archiving.
- PowerPoint and Silverlight for interactive publications.
- Word for editing.
-
TIFF for faxing (including CCIT3 and CCIT4 compression levels).
- JPEG, PNG, GIF and SVG
for on-screen viewing.
- HTML for Web publishing.
We support these formats at a professional level. For example, PDF and Postscript outputs support
CMYK, ICC and spots colors, and are
PDF/X compliant.
We also support
PDF/A for archiving.
Performance
XF Rendering Server is designed for the ultimate performance and scalability; it
can scale both horizontally and vertically to the throughput rate that is need,
regardless of the output size.
Vertical scaling is possible because XF Rendering Server is able to use multiple
CPUs (and/or CPU cores) to process a single document. With every release we improve
the rendering performance and memory consumption and we constantly
benchmark our software against competing engines.
Horizontal scaling is achieved using NetLink,
our load balancing platform. This is also a way to achieve fault tolerance, with
failed requests being automatically retried to other machines in the rendering farm.
We are firmly committed to provide the most scalable formatting engine for XML data
and we'll gladly optimize our engine for any particular usage scenarios our users
find useful
Open Standards Compliance
XF Rendering Server can format any XML document by applying document layouts described
in XSL, which is an open standard developed by by
W3C consortium,
the same organization that standardizes HTML and virtually all major XML languages.
XF Rendering Server is compliant
with the XSL-FO 1.1 specifications.
Another XML technology standardized by W3C and used by Ecrion XF Rendering Server
is SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics). SVG can describe vectorial images (maps,
charts, various graphics) that can scale without quality loss.
Unsurpassed Set of Features
XF Rendering Server includes all features you would expect from a modern reporting
engine, including support for complex elements such us headers and footers, tables,
barcodes and charts. But the set of features goes beyond the abilities of a reporting
engine: XF can perform complicated pagination tasks (like different layout for first,
last, even and odd pages), insert footnotes and cross references (such as table
of contents). Internationalization features includes Unicode support (Chinese, Hebrew,
Russian etc.) and excellent hyphenation support.
You can easily accomplish most complex printing challenges such as duplex printing,
stapling, and other printing related features.
Finally, all popular font formats such as True Type(TTF), Type 1 (Postscript),
compact fonts (CFF), and OpenType are supported.
Tools
The distribution includes a set of graphical and command line tools designed to
provide out-of-box automation for the most useful tasks.
- Management Console - interface for performing administrative tasks, monitoring performance,
setting up hot folders and changing settings.
- Run Task - Create tasks in this easy to use application. You can specify one or
more files and folders to convert and set job parameters.
- Document Viewer - Enables the preview of XML to PDF conversion.
- Taskpad - A system tray application that provides system information and several
useful shortcuts.