Here is one more quick post this morning so I can get rid of yet another
item on my Windows desktop that I should have deleted a long time ago --
this time a small Excel worksheet that I created back in late 2010. [Wow, where
does the time go?]
I mentioned in
a previous post how I created a custom "document publishing" system for
a client based on the Web Content Management features in SharePoint, which included
an "Export to PDF" feature.
While researching HTML-to-PDF converters, I created an Excel worksheet to
capture some notes about various products, pricing, etc. This formed the basis
for providing my recommendation to the client (Securitas).
Rather than attaching the Excel worksheet to this post, I'll simply copy
the content into a table.
Warning - Internet Explorer Users
While publishing this post, I discovered the following table looks
really ugly in IE9 (since the width is not properly constrained to the
content area). I spent no less than 20 minutes trying to force IE to
make it look as nice as it does in Firefox and Chrome (e.g. by adding
a width attribute to the table and even explicitly
specifying column widths using a colgroup element.
However, none of those hacks worked.
While I would normally invest more effort trying to find a workaround
for this bug in IE, I've got more important things to do this morning.
If you are using IE and you find the following table difficult to read,
may I suggest using a better
different browser (e.g. Firefox)?
HTML-to-PDF Converters
| Product |
URL |
Pricing |
Comments |
| Adlib Software EXPRESS |
http://www.adlibsoftware.com |
Priced by server, starting at $20-24k |
Uses Amyuni libraries (according to Gabor Fari); extensive SharePoint
integration (for document conversion); major focus on life sciences
and other industries with strict regulatory requirements |
| Altsoft Xml2PDF |
http://www.alt-soft.com |
Professional - $2,099 (includes 1 year maintenance); $550/yr maintenance |
Built on .NET platform; company based in Belgium |
| Amyuni PDF Converter |
http://www.amyuni.com |
$459 per developer; $689 per application; $399/yr maintenance |
Conversion appears to be through "print to PDF" (even for server
applications -- e.g. "lock"/"unlock") |
| Antenna House Formatter v5 |
http://www.antennahouse.com |
Server - $5,000 for first CPU, $4,000 each additional proc; $3,000
Developer license |
Company Web site looks very elementary |
| Ibex PDF Creator |
http://www.xmlpdf.com |
$999 per developer (includes 1 year maintenance); $350/yr maintenance |
"Team licensing" available for groups of ten or more developers;
separate .NET and Java versions |
| Prince XML |
http://www.princexml.com |
$3,800 per server; $950/yr maintenance |
Current version is 7.1 (May 2010); original 1.0 version released
in April 2003; support appears to be through email only |
| RenderX XEP |
http://www.renderx.com |
$4,400.00 per CPU core |
"written in Java" (http://www.renderx.com/tools/xep.html) |
| XSL:FO + Apache FOP |
http://xmlgraphics.apache.org/fop |
Free |
FOP is Java-based |
Note
The pricing shown above has likely changed in the time since I gathered
the data, and there may very well be additional products available today
that I did not come across during my research.
My intent for this post is not to provide an exhaustive list of the current
options for converting HTML to PDF. Rather I simply wanted to share the information
that I captured just in case it proves useful to others. [Something I should
have done long ago.]
Based on platform, suitability for a "server-side" solution, and pricing,
we decided to evaluate Altsoft Xml2PDF, Ibex PDF Creator, and Prince XML. Of
those three, I found Prince XML to be the most robust in terms of CSS support
and consequently recommended that product to Securitas.
One of the other products I evaluated (honestly, I can't remember which one)
had a strong tendency to crash when I tested it against the sample content and
CSS files that I developed. The other got some of the formatting right during
the conversion, but left a lot to be desired.
Prince, on the other hand, was very good at rendering the PDF nearly identical
to the on-screen version of the HTML content.