Prince 5.1 review

Prince is a batch formatter for converting XML into PDF by applying Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). Prince prints any XML document, wi

License: Other/Proprietary License with Free Trial File size: 2520K Developer: Michael Day

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Prince is a batch formatter for converting XML into PDF by applying Cascading Style Sheets (CSS).

Prince prints any XML document, with special support for XHTML, DocBook, and SVG, which can be used in combination with other XML languages.

Here are some key features of "Prince":
Print any XML document

Unlike many other formatters, Prince can print any XML document. Because Prince does not rely on proprietary markup, you have the freedom to use whatever tags are right for you.

Prince supports DTDs and DTD catalogs that can define entities and default attributes. The support for external XML entities enables you to subdivide large documents for convenient management.

The power of Cascading Style Sheets

Prince has strong support for Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). CSS is a widely used style sheet language which has become very popular on the web. It is flexible, easy to learn and simple to use.

The use of CSS encourages the separation of content and style, helping you to keep your documents free from clutter and promoting the reuse of content and style sheets.

Print XHTML web content

Prince includes a default style sheet for XHTML, the XML language of the World Wide Web. Prince makes it easy to print your web content and produce professional-looking results.

Advanced Layout Features

Prince has an advanced layout engine with support for:

Page headers/footers, page numbering and duplex printing
Tables with automatic layout and running headers/footers
Lists with customisable bullets or numbers
Multi-column layout and floating blocks
Automatic numbering of lists, headings, sections or figures

Advanced Graphics Support

Prince supports a rich subset of Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG), the format of choice for graphics such as clip-art, diagrams, maps, charts and graphs.

Prince supports several standard image formats (JPEG, PNG, TIFF, GIF), making it easy to embed pictures and photos in your documents.

Style sheet for DocBook

Prince comes with a default style sheet for DocBook, one of the most popular XML vocabularies for technical documents. The style is easy to change or extend with your own custom style sheets.

Command-line interface for batch formatting

Prince provides a command line interface on Windows and Linux, allowing it to be called easily from batch files and shell scripts or integrated with other programs to form document publishing pipelines.

Graphical User Interface

On Windows, Prince provides a Graphical User Interface that can be used as a user-friendly document conversion tool or for testing purposes.

What's New in This Release:
Support was added for legacy HTML and transparency in PNG and GIF images.
Resources can be loaded from data URLs and the XHTML < object > tag supports fallback if an image cannot be loaded.
With these new features, Prince now passes the Acid2 test from the Web Standards Project.