Flying Saucer (library)
| Company type | Open-source software project |
|---|---|
| Industry | Software development |
| Founded | 2004 |
| Founder | Joshua Marinacci |
| Products | XHTML renderer, PDF generation tool |
| Website | github |
Flying Saucer—also referred to as the XHTML renderer—is a fully Java-based library designed to render content written in XML, XHTML, and CSS 2.1.
Primarily intended for integrating web-like user interfaces within Java applications, it does not function as a comprehensive web browser due to its limited support for the full range of HTML features.
A notable capability of Flying Saucer is its integration with iText, enabling the conversion of rendered XHTML into PDF documents. This functionality, which includes sophisticated options such as pagination and customizable headers and footers, has made it a preferred choice for server-side PDF creation.
History
The Flying Saucer project was initiated in 2004 by Joshua Marinacci,<ref>who subsequently became part of Sun Microsystems. It continues to be maintained as an open-source initiative independent of Sun.
At one point, Sun Microsystems intended to incorporate Flying Saucer within F3,<ref> a Java-centric scripting language that later developed into JavaFX Script.
Compliance
Flying Saucer ensures high adherence to XHTML and CSS 2.1 standards, maintaining compliance even under complex rendering conditions.<ref>