XEP Font Configuration Settings

This section describes RenderX XEP font configuration settings defined in the xep.xml file. Adobe Base-14 and some Windows fonts are predefined.

Earlier in the book, we learned that XSL processors are required to map XSL-FO generic fonts to specific fonts based output devices. In this tutorial, let's take a look at how RenderX XEP does this for PDF output files:

1. XEP uses a configuration file to control formatting options and font settings. The configuration file, xep.xml, is located at: \proga~1\RenderX\XEP\xep.xml. You can open it in a text editor to view and make changes.

2. The following settings in xep.xml control how XSL-FO generic fonts are mapped to specific fonts:

 <fonts ...>
  ...
  <font-alias name="monospace" value="Courier"/>
  <font-alias name="sans-serif" value="Helvetica"/>
  <font-alias name="serif" value="Times"/>
  <font-alias name="cursive" value="Times"/>
  <font-alias name="fantasy" value="Times"/>
 </fonts>

3. The following settings in xep.xml control how "Courier" and other Adobe Base-14 fonts are defined:

<fonts ...>
...
<font-group label="Base 14" embed="false" subset="false" 
 initial-encoding="standard">
 <font-family name="Courier">
  <font><font-data afm="Courier.afm"/></font>
  <font style="oblique"><font-data afm="Courier-Oblique.afm"/></font>
  <font weight="bold"><font-data afm="Courier-Bold.afm"/></font>
  <font weight="bold" style="oblique">
   <font-data afm="Courier-BoldOblique.afm"/>
  </font>
 </font-family>
 ...
</font-group>
</fonts>

As you can see from these settings, Adobe Base-14 fonts are defined through AFM (Adobe Font Metrics) files located at \proga~1\RenderX\XEP\fonts\Courier*.afm.

Attribute embed="false" indicates that the actual font data will not be embedded in the output file. In this case, the final viewer of the output file is responsible to provide the font data. Of course, Adobe Acrobat Reader knows how to provide font data for Adobe Base-14 fonts.

4. xep.xml comes with some additional specific fonts defined too. For example:

<fonts ...>
...
<font-group xml:base="file:/C:/Windows/Fonts/" 
 label="Windows TrueType" embed="true" subset="true">
 <font-family name="Arial">
  <font><font-data ttf="arial.ttf"/></font>
  <font style="oblique"><font-data ttf="ariali.ttf"/></font>
  <font weight="bold"><font-data ttf="arialbd.ttf"/></font>
  <font weight="bold" style="oblique">
   <font-data ttf="arialbi.ttf"/>
  </font>
  ...
 </font-family>
 ...
</font-group>
</fonts>

As you can see from example, "Arial" is defined through TTF (TrueType Font) files located at C:/Windows/Fonts/arial*.ttf.

Attribute embed="false" and subset="true" indicate that a subset of the actual font data will be embedded in the output file to any glyphs used in the output. In this case, the final viewer of the output file will have the font data ready to use.

5. RenderX XEP allows us to add settings to define our own font families as we have font definitions and font data files. See next tutorials for more details.

Table of Contents

 About This Book

 Introduction of XSL-FO

 Apache™ FOP (Formatting Objects Processor)

 RenderX XEP as an XSL-FO Tool

 Introduction of Area Model

 XSL-FO Document Basics and Examples

 Page Layout Masters

 Block-Level Formatting Objects

 Inline-Level Formatting Objects

 Including Graphics in XSL-FO document

 Table of Rows and Columns

 List, Item, Label, and Body

 Floating Blocks - "float" and "footnote"

 Hyperlinks, Table of Contents and Indexes

 Headers and Footers using "static-content"

 Font Attributes and Font Families

 Apache FOP Font Configurations

RenderX XEP Font Configurations

XEP Font Configuration Settings

 XEP Predefined Font Test

 Configuring SimHei Font for Chinese Characters

 Converting HTML to PDF

 References

 Full Version in PDF/ePUB