As XML is becoming a standard way for representing and exchanging information, the need to convert this information to a user friendly PDF file also increases. XSL-FO  is a standard for converting XML to PDF and other output formats. Apache FOP is an open source product that can execute XSL-FO file.

J4L FO Designer is a WYSIWYG like editor (what you see is what you get)  to create XSL-FO files to be used with Apache FOP. These files are used to convert XML documents to PDF files (and other formats). The benefits of FO Designer are:

• No need to learn XSL-FO.
• Easy to use and learn.
• Increased productivity througth integrated design and test environment.
• We have extended XSL-FO to support interactive PDF forms (Designer 1.5 or later)
• Versioning system and team work enviroment

Possible use cases are

• PDF publishing in several products as Oracle APEX or  Apache Cocoon.
• Conversion of XML documents to PDF in integration tools like  Oracle BPEL and SOA,  SAP XI or PI , Mule ESB, and IBM Websphere Process Server.
• Generation of PDF files in web applications using AJAX.
• As a generic reporting tool in Java: Java classes can be converted to XML and to PDF.
• In eBusiness scenarios to collect data from business partners using PDF forms.

Some features are:

• PDF interactive forms.
• Define colors, fonts, lines and frames.
• Conversion of codes to descriptions.
• Dynamically or statically add images.
• Add 1D and 2D Barcodes (EAN, Code128, Code39, Datamatrix, PDF417, Aztec, QRCode , Maxicode and others).
• "Group by" feature
• Charts
• Support for TTF fonts and national character sets
• Support for Arabic texts
• User defined functions
• Support for several page masters (for example, cover page)
• add digital signature to PDF files
• background images
• running subtotals
• flavours

A good starting point is the learn by doing tutorial in our user guide.