Using Other Rendering Engines

Using Other Rendering Engines

A version of Apache FOP is installed with InterSystems IRIS. If you chose to use another PDF rendering tool, you must perform the following additional configuration steps.

1. Install the XSL-FO to PDF rendering tool. Two of the available options are:

   • An open source project from Apache called FOP. You can download it from the following Web site:

     http://xmlgraphics.apache.org/fopOpens in a new tab

     To install, simply extract the files from the kit.

   • The XEP product from RenderX. You can download a free trial version that produces a RenderX watermark on each output page, or you can buy the XEP product. See this Web site for details:

     http://www.renderx.com/tools/xep.htmlOpens in a new tab

     To install, follow the instructions in the kit.

   • To configure InterSystems IRIS to work with RenderX XEP, you need to define a %JAVA_HOME% and a %XEP_HOME% environment variable. %JAVA_HOME% is described in the Java documentation. %XEP_HOME% is an environment variable specifying the location where you have installed XEP.

2. Configure InterSystems IRIS with the full pathname of the command file that invokes the rendering tool. For XEP or FOP on Windows or UNIX®, once you have installed the tool as instructed in Step 1, this command file is present on your system under the installation directory for the tool, for example C:\fop-0.95\fop.bat for Windows or /fop-0.95/fop on UNIX®.

   To perform this configuration, navigate to System Administration > Configuration > Report Servers > Settings, and make the following changes:

   • Path and File Name For PDF Generation: — Enter the path to the executable file. Click Browse to locate and select the command file.

   • Foxit / Adobe Path for Pdfprint: — Ignore this field.

   • Configuration File For PDF Rendering Engine: — This field is optional. Select Use or None. If you select Use, enter the path to the FOP configuration file. If you do not specify a FOP configuration file, the FOP renderer uses the configuration file supplied with the built-in FOP.

     Do not enter a path in this field if you are using an XEP renderer. The XEP renderer truncates any file specified here to 0 length. Click Browse to locate and select the configuration file.

     You can create custom configuration files as described by the tool provider’s Web site. To provide XEP with a custom configuration file, you need to follow the manual for XEP.

   • Default HotJVM Render Server Port — Enter the port number where the HotJVM Render Server is running.

   • Verify Now — Click this button to test whether or not the rendering tool is configured correctly.

   Alternatively, start the Terminal and set the corresponding global nodes. For example, to set the renderer executable:

   Set ^%SYS("zenreport","transformerpath")="/Applications/fop-0.95/fop.bat"
   

   

   Similarly, to set the configuration file, set ^%SYS("zenreport","transformerconfig") to the path of the configuration file.

3. The default behavior is to use the installed FOP, unless you have set an alternative renderer on the Management Portal Report Settings page.

Note:

If you are using FOP version 0.94 or earlier, you must set a flag to specify that an older FOP version is the rendering tool. To do this, enter the following commands in the Terminal:

set $namespace = "%SYS"
set ^%SYS("zenreport","oldfop")=1