install

Additional install commands

macOS

Homebrewverified · 100%

brew install fop

provider-native install command

overview

Package summary

XSL-FO print formatter for making PDF or PS documents

Project links

Homepage

Commands and aliases

fop

history

Project history and usage

Apache FOP, the Formatting Objects Processor, is an Apache XML Graphics project for rendering XSL formatting objects into paged output. Its primary output target is PDF, with official documentation also listing formats such as PostScript, PCL, AFP, XML area trees, print, AWT, PNG, RTF, and TXT.

Project history

FOP has a long Apache history as a Java implementation of XSL-FO processing. The current project site frames it as both a print formatter driven by XSL-FO and an output-independent formatter that reads an FO tree and lays out pages before rendering.

The public news archive shows the older 0.20.x line in 2003, the 0.9x rewrite era in the mid-2000s, a production-grade 1.0 release in 2010, and the 2.x series beginning with FOP 2.0 in 2015.

Adoption history

FOP became the default open-source command-line answer for XML-to-PDF pipelines in Java and Ant-era publishing workflows because XSL-FO is XML and can be generated from semantic XML using XSLT. The Apache site explicitly documents command-line running, embedding, servlet use, an Ant task, configuration, and compliance.

How it is used

Typical usage is to convert XML-derived XSL-FO into PDF or another supported output format. The configuration guide documents fop.xconf as an XML configuration file, with a sample at {fop-dir}/conf/fop.xconf that users copy and edit before telling FOP where to find it.

Why package nerds care

Package maintainers care about FOP because it is a Java CLI with a broad documentation surface, examples, fonts and configuration, and historical compatibility concerns across the 0.20.5, 1.x, and 2.x configuration formats. It is also the canonical Apache implementation many build systems reach for when they need deterministic PDF generation from XML.

Timeline

2003: Apache FOP 0.20.5 released.
2008: Apache FOP 0.95 released as a production-grade release of the new codebase.
2010: Apache FOP 1.0 released as a production-grade release.
2015: Apache FOP 2.0 released.
2025: Apache FOP 2.11 released.

Related projects

FOP is part of Apache XML Graphics. The site navigation and release news also point to FOP-PDF-Images, Apache Batik, XSL-FO, and the broader Apache XML Graphics documentation and wiki ecosystem.

Sources

security posture

Risk level: green

narrow executable package without higher-risk signals.

Risk classifier

green risk · low confidence · appliance

Why

narrow executable package without higher-risk signals

Signals

metadata:no-higher-risk-signals

Install behavior

No Homebrew bottle metadata was recorded.

Recommended review

Before unattended agent use, check whether the tool reads plaintext credentials, writes remote state, publishes artifacts, or shells out to plugins.

local files

Configuration and credential file locations

These source-backed paths show where this package keeps local settings or durable credentials. Automic Vault can use them as review targets for secret scanning, migration, and command approval.

Configuration files

Config paths the tool may read or write during local use.

Unix: <fop-dir>/conf/fop.xconf

executables

Installed executables

Command	Kind	Exposure	Note
`fop`	executable	indexed executable	Discovered from the local executable index.

freshness

Version and freshness

These signals separate page generation age, package-manager activity, and upstream release comparison. Version lag is warned only when an evidence URL and comparable versions are present.

page generated2026-08-03

manager version2.11

manager updated2026-06-22

local dataunknown

upstreamnot available

latest detectednot detected

okNo freshness warnings were generated.

install metadata

Package metadata

Package key	brew:fop
Version	2.11
Package manager	Homebrew
Homepage	https://xmlgraphics.apache.org/fop/index.html
Last updated	2026-06-22T14:03:21-07:00
Pulse	updated
Bottle	not recorded
Service	none declared

package graph

Links come from deterministic package relationships, av.db category and tag curation, ecosystem matches, and package hub membership.

source trail

Generated from repository data

This page is generated by av-web from the private package SQLite artifact built by scripts/generate-pkg-sqlite.py.

Combined YAML source

View the package source record on GitHub.

combined/fop.yml

Used sources

Geiger risk classifier
Nucleus package database
curated configuration and credential file locations
curated package history
pkgdb category and tag curation

Install fop with Homebrew