[cairo] Re: Article for german iX magazine

[Alp Toker]

Michael Bruckmeier wrote:
>                 my name is Michael Bruckmeier and I am about to write an 
> article about Cairo. It will be in one of the next few Issues of german 
> iX magazine (www.ix.de <http://www.ix.de>), spanning four pages. It will 
> also point out some connections to Microsoft’s WPF. I just wanted to let 
> the world know. Perhaps someone has some interesting points to share 
> with me, which i can present in that article.

Hi Michael,

You might be interested in NDesk Xps, http://www.ndesk.org/Xps

   This is an implementation of XPS, the XML Paper Specification, a
   fixed-layout document format. It's not yet complete but manages to
   render many documents.

   It works by targeting Cairo, a 2D graphics library with support for
   multiple output devices. The imaging models are fairly similar so
   lossless conversions to targets like PDF should be possible.

   NDesk Xps is capable of taking an xps file and processing it entirely
   in memory, including support for loading and de-obfuscating embedded
   fonts and subsetting them (using Cairo) to the target surface. This
   means that text can maintain its typographic qualities throughout
   conversion without rasterisation.

   The code is written in C# and has been tested on Mono. The only tool
   available is currently an XPS-to-PDF converter, however conversions to
   other file formats such as SVG and PostScript is trivially possible
   and will be supported soon. The code can also trivially and
   efficiently support graphical viewers, and the goal is to eventually
   provide Gtk# and Windows.Forms XPS viewer utilities.

   XPS is an interesting format because, apart from its physical package
   layout, its format is a subset of Microsoft's WPF/E Windows
   Presentation Foundation. Thus the NDesk Xps project can act as a
   stepping stone towards a fuller implementation of the WPF
   specification.

Note that this currently requires Mono.Cairo from Mono's SVN repository 
as I have been fixing the binding as I go, based partly on feedback from 
Carl Worth.

If you have any specific questions about how the models compare or how 
to install the software, feel free to ask, but keep in mind that I am 
only tackling the static subset of WPF that deals with document layout 
right now, so basically this is analogous to PDF.

Regards.