This post introduces our new commercial component for docx to PDF output.
The background is that docx4j’s standard method of producing PDF output has been via XSL FO, using Apache FOP.
This has worked well enough for some docx4j users, but it has certain limitations which can bite you, for example lack of tab and tab stop support in XSL FO.
And because there are differences between FOP’s layout engine and Word’s, page breaks may fall in different places.
This means the FO based PDF output in docx4j is about as good as its going to get (short of enhancing the FO renderer).
To do better, we’ve had to invest in a non-FO approach, using layout algorithms specifically designed to give the same results Word does.
You can try it now.
A side benefit is that this new approach is much faster than the FO approach.
The component is actually independent of docx4j. This means it’ll also work great if you need to convert docx to PDF from C# (without Word), Python, PHP etc.
