The XML Apache has posted the first alpha of FOP 0.90, an open source XSL Formatting Objects to PDF/PostScript/RTF converter written in Java. This is the the first preview release after three years of redesign. New features include keeps on all implemented FO elements, reference-orientation, better indent behaviour, various improvements on inline elements like baseline-shift and improved leaders and image handling, and improved border painting. According to Jeremias Maerki, "This release is the first after a big redesign effort on the whole FOP codebase. This release is to be considered ALPHA quality and it is intended as a preview release encouraging people to take a look at the new version and to provide feedback to the developers. Please not only report to us problems you might experience but also tell us if it works for you. If you find out that this version works fine for you, you're welcome to use it but please test it thoroughly as we don't consider this release ready for every production environment." Java 1.3 or later is required.
YesLogic has released Prince 5.0 r4, a $349 payware batch formatter for Linux, Windows, and Mac OS X that produces PDF and PostScript from XML documents with CSS stylesheets. This is a bug fix release.
