I am looking to understand modern ways of document templating and batch rendering/generation to formats like PDF and Word. Are there alternative to XSL-FO based products e.g. CSS based products? Is there a better/emerging standard than XSL-FO?
I have a few solution in mind that utilise the XSL-FO standard for specifying document templates, and then using a rendering engine to generate documents in PDF, MS Word etc. These include Apache FOP, Ecrion, RenderX and Antenna House. We particularly like the Ecrion product as it allows a good visual (business user friendly) way of creating templates.
We are keen to understand the alternatives - modern, utilising current standards, allowing batch rendering from templates, and supports a user-friendly way to define templates in an Office-like environment.
CSS rendering is an interesting development, but (as far as I've seen in my limited use of CSS) it's not yet as powerful as XSL-FO.