The Rendition Engine is a software server responsible for transforming documents into another format, such as PDF and HTML. It is based on the Liquent RenderPerfect product, which is built on the Liquent Vista framework and includes the Liquent Vista Java API that integrates with Content Engine Publishing when rendering documents into another format.
The Liquent software (RenderPerfect and Vista framework) is comprised of several COM+ programs that perform various processes, such as retrieving, rendering, converting, zipping, and distributing documents, and managing the processing activities and message queues.
The Liquent software also uses a database to store configuration and job activity information. Any Rendition Engine servers and Content Engine servers that are configured to do transformation Publishing must be able to communicate with the database. The Liquent software on the Rendition Engine server uses ADO to communicate with the database and the Liquent Vista Java API software on the Content Engine server uses JDBC to communicate with the database. There is also communication between the Liquent software on the Rendition Engine servers as well as between them and the Liquent Vista Java API software on the Content Engine servers. This is done with Liquent proprietary TCP/IP socket communication over ports specified in the configuration.
You can use the Liquent Domain Manager program which is available on the Rendition Engine server, to:
The configuration information stored in the database is referred to as the Vista domain and can be viewed with the Liquent Domain Manager. The Vista domain specifies repositories, where the "com" repositories represent each actual Rendition Engine server and the Java repositories represent Liquent Vista Java API clients, such as each Content Engine server that is configured to do transformation publishing.
A typical configuration consists of one or more Rendition Engine servers connected to one or more Content Engine servers. You can install the Rendition Engine software on the same server as a Content Engine (if it is on a Windows server), but we recommend using a dedicated Rendition Engine server.
For the Liquent software to properly function, Liquent's Windows service named BusinessServiceServer must be set to start automatically. When the service starts, it will launch the BusinessServiceManager process which will respond to a rendering request issued from Content Engine Publishing through the Liquent Vista Java API.
To render a document, the Liquent software changes the default printer setting on the Rendition Engine server to the Liquent XML Printer. Because you will not normally print documents from this server, we recommend leaving the Liquent XML Printer as the default printer setting.
Rendering of a document into another format is broken down into several steps on the Rendition Engine server:
Documents are brought over to the Rendition Engine server.
If the document is to be transformed to PDF, then the render step involves using the document's native application to print it to the Liquent XML Printer that will create an XML representation of the documents content. A convert step is next.
If the document is to be transformed to HTML and it is an Microsoft Office or Corel WordPerfect document, then the render step will use the document's native application's functionality to save the document as a web page to create the HTML file(s).
After an XML representation of the document is created, the XML file is converted to a PDF file.
Following the previous steps, the resulting file(s) are zipped up with the zip step, and then passed back to the Content Engine server and is ready for distribution.