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https://github.com/widgetii/fr2afop

FreeReport to Apache FOP Converter
https://github.com/widgetii/fr2afop

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FreeReport to Apache FOP Converter

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README 

        
========================================================================



                    FreeReport to Apache FOP Converter



========================================================================



'fr2afop' is a Java application that reads a FreeReport file and turns it

into a XML document, populating with data, and finally renders the report

as PDF document or certain other output formats. Apache FOP is used as 

rendering engine.



Converter execution cycle consists of several steps and looks as follows:



1) Convert Free Report file to XML.

  At this stage converter takes .frf file and produces .xml stream. XML file

  contains all pages, views and their positions on page, list of variables

  and other information belonging to a report. The acquired .xml file can be 

  used later as input for converter. When a report is being read from .xml

  file, the same report instance is restored as it would read from .frf file.

   

2) Correct XML output using XSL replacement template.

  This step is optional. It will be executed only if ReplacementFile is 

  specified in converter configuration. At this stage XML output can be modified

  by applying any rules that you may define. The rules are specified as XSL 

  templates. For example, you may want to replace a MemoView to BarcodeView 

  sometimes or assign defined value to not-assigned variable.



3) Fetch data from database, place data in XML.

  This step is optional. It will be applied only if the data sources listed in 

  a report will be defined in convert configuration. FreeReport file does not 

  contain data source definition (like connection settings or SQL query or 

  list of fields). The datasource is defined in Delphi application and we can't

  get an access to it. So, we define our own datasources in convert configuration

  file. For details about configuring a converter, see the comments in corresponding 

  configuration files of ./conf directory.



4) Convert XML to XSL-FO.

  This step precedes rendering. At this stage .xml report file is being converted 

  to XSL-FO format using build-in XSL template. After that the report will be 

  rendered as output, but if you specify XSL-FO transformation (-ofo) instead of

  rendering, then converter will stop here (you will get .fo file as the result).



5) Render XSL-FO as PDF/PCL/PS output.

  This is the final stage. The output file will be acquired after that. Converter

  will go to the next command or will finish process if it was the last one.



Converter can be invoked twice: firstly you start it in order to convert .frf 

file to .xml, then make any changes in .xml file or populating the data manually,

finally you launch converter to render .xml file as PDF output or certain other 

output formats.



More details about Free Report engine can be found at

http://freereport.sourceforge.net



Note that not all parts of the FreeReport functionality have yet been

implemented. Read release notes in order to understand, what features are not 

ready.



Apache FOP is part of Apache's XML Graphics project. The homepage of Apache 

FOP is http://xmlgraphics.apache.org/fop/.



BUILDING THE APPLICATION

------------------------



1. Requirements



In order to build application you will need:

	- Maven 3.0.x or later

	- JDK 1.6 or later



Also optional additional software would make it easy for you to work 

with the sources of the application:



    - Spring Tool Suite IDE (to explore and run the application 

      in IDE). You're obviously free to use any other IDE you wish. 



2. Build



To build the project you need to navigate to the project root folder and 

run:



	mvn clean package

	

Maven will read project specification in pom.xml file, will download all 

dependencies, will compile the project source code and build .jar file. 



3. Deploy



By default .jar file is compiled without dependencies. In order to use it 

as console application, you need to add dependencies and configuration files.

This was done for you by Maven during packaging. The complete and final

distribution was placed in /target/dist/ folder as .zip archive.



4. Sources



During packaging Maven places all sources in /target/src/ folder as .zip 

archive.



RUNNING THE APPLICATION

-----------------------



Converter is a console application. Simply run it by typing 'fr2afop' in 

the command-line. Without any parameters you will receive a screen with 

instruction on how to call converter from the command-line.



The converter executes commands in pairs: it takes some input and produces

some output. Such input and output parameters are named 'command pair'.

Command line can consist of as many command pairs as you want, converter

will executes them one by one sequentially. 



General usage of converter is as follows:

  

	fr2afop CommandPair1 CommandPair2 CommandPair3 ...  



, where CommandPairX is actually two commands:

  

	-i[fr|fr2217|xml|ttf] inputFile -o[xml|pdf|pcl|ps|png|fo] outputFile



The input and output formats can belong to any type from listed below:



Input formats:

 ifr     - reads FreeReport file and converts it to xml or renders it

 ifr2217 - reads FreeReport file in old format (version 2217)

 ixml    - reads XML-file acquired after conversion

 ittf    - reads the TTF file and generates an appropriate font metrics xml-file for it



Output formats:

 oxml    - specifies XML file conversion

 opdf    - specifies PDF rendering

 opcl    - specifies PCL rendering

 ops     - specifies PostScript rendering

 opng    - specifies PNG rendering

 ofo     - specifies XSL-FO transformation

 

Specify \"-print \" instead of \"-oxxx outputfile\" in order to print the 

output.



If not specified explicitly configuration files are taken from ./conf directory. For 

additional details how to specify paths to configuration files, look into contents of

'fr2afop' batch script.



For details about configuring a converter, see the comments in corresponding configuration

files of ./conf directory.



The reports sometimes use different fonts. A new font must be described in converter

configuration, otherwise it will be replaced to existing font. In order to add a new 

font, you should:

1) create XML font-metrics file (use -ittf and -oxml as command pair);

2) copy created XML file and TTF font to /fonts folder; 

3) describe a font in Apache FOP configuration file (see the details in /conf/fop.xconf).



RELEASE NOTES

-------------



Version 1.0.



This is first production grade release of "FreeReport to Apache FOP Converter".



The following features of FreeReport engine have NOT been implemented:

	Page can't be splitted in columns.

	The following bands are not supported: Detail, SubDetail, Overlay, Group, VarColumn.

	LineView and SubReportView are not rendered.

	MemoView 'format' flags are not used.

	MemoView highlight field is not used.

	

Version 1.1.



- added print command