Hi,

I'm the new user of Prince, could anyone advise how to handle the below items to meet our internal client requirements:

(1) Shall we create complex layouts using Prince which includes 2/3-column layouts with complex color mixings with gradients/tints in the designs?
(2) Shall Prince is supporting to handle stub-columns (major and minor columns)?
(3) Shall Prince is supporting Vertical Justification to align automatically the page depths?
(4) Shall Prince is supporting MathML completely, if yes, how to modify the fonts to different tags based on the MathML coding?
(5) Shall Prince is supporting shades and alternate fills to table cells?
(6) Shall Prince is supporting to handle any type of footnotes which includes 2/3-columns?
(7) Shall Prince is supporting to set PDF properties based on the client request, if yes, how to generate the printer PDF with crop marks, bleeds, registrations marks, etc?
(8) Shall Prince is supporting to generate web PDF with links to TOC contents, index terms, internal floating links and external links?
(9) How to auto-generate the labels to headings , list numbers, etc. based on the attributes?
(10) Shall Prince is supporting to generate EPUB files (fixed/floating) directly from the XML inputs?

Please share the details to the above items, will test and decide further to purchase the license.

Thanks,
G. Raja

(1) You can create multi-column layout using the "columns" property, eg. "columns: 2".
(2) What are stub-columns? (Probably not).
(3) No, not yet.
(4) For high quality maths rendering it would probably be best to convert to SVG before running Prince.
(5) Yes, eg. using the CSS selector tr:nth-of-type(even) { background: gray }
(6) Footnotes yes, columns in the footnotes area no.
(7) "@page { marks: crop cross }" in the CSS, but registration marks not supported yet.
(8) Links work, but you must generate the TOC and index markup yourself.
(9) JavaScript.
(10) No ePub, only PDF output.

Thanks Mike, given below my comments, please check and confirm:

(1) Fine for columns, please confirm on the support to apply colors with gradients/tints?
(2) Stub columns are nothing but having 2 columns, first one is smaller and second one is bigger columns, please confirm
(3) Noted, could you please consider to include this feature in the upcoming releases?
(4) Noted, could you share the limitations facing in MathML, since almost all of our clients needs MathML as inputs for the equations?
(5) Noted, thanks
(6) Noted, could you please consider to include this feature (footnotes flowing into multiple columns) in the upcoming releases?
(7) Noted, could you please consider to include this feature (registration marks) in the upcoming releases?
(8) Noted, thanks
(9) Noted, thanks
(10) Noted, could you please consider to include this feature (ePub conversion) in the upcoming releases?

Also, please confirm whether we can export RTF/DOC from Prince and please confirm how to apply styles to a XML tag using CSS?

(1) The usual CSS color and background-color properties are supported, as well as gradients via background-image and SVG.
(2) You can force column breaks by applying "column-break-after: always" to a block element.
(3) Vertical justification is on the roadmap, but not this year.
(4) How complex is the MathML? It might be best to try running Prince first and see for yourself.
(6) Footnote columns one day, but not for at least two years I expect.
(7) Registration marks perhaps, can you provide some examples of what you need?
(10) Prince is not an ePub conversion tool, and there are existing tools for doing this.

Prince does not convert to RTF/DOC format.

You apply CSS to XML by passing the style sheets on the command-line or using the xml-stylesheet processing instruction in the document.