Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Prince XML VS Markdown by DaringFireball

Compare Prince XML VS Markdown by DaringFireball and see what are their differences

Note: These products don't have any matching categories. If you think this is a mistake, please edit the details of one of the products and suggest appropriate categories.

Prince XML logo Prince XML

Convert HTML documents to PDF. Beautiful printing with CSS.

Markdown by DaringFireball logo Markdown by DaringFireball

Text-to-HTML conversion tool/syntax for web writers, by John Gruber
  • Prince XML Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-01-26
  • Markdown by DaringFireball Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-08-02

Prince XML features and specs

  • High-Quality PDF Output
    Prince XML is known for producing high-quality and professional PDFs, with excellent typography control and support for complex layouts.
  • CSS Support
    Leverages CSS for styling, making it familiar for web developers to use when creating print-style documents.
  • Multilingual Support
    Supports a wide range of languages and scripts, including complex text layouts and right-to-left scripts, making it versatile for international use.
  • Automation-Friendly
    Can be easily integrated into automated workflows, suitable for generating documents programmatically.
  • Platform Independence
    Available on multiple platforms, including Windows, macOS, Linux, and cloud services, ensuring compatibility with diverse environments.

Possible disadvantages of Prince XML

  • Cost
    Prince XML requires a license for commercial use, which can be expensive for small businesses or personal projects.
  • Steep Learning Curve
    Users need to have a good understanding of HTML and CSS to utilize Prince XML effectively, which may be challenging for those unfamiliar with these technologies.
  • Limited Interactivity
    Primarily focused on static documents, it does not support interactive PDF features like forms or multimedia embeds to the extent some other tools do.
  • Complexity with Advanced Features
    While it handles basic document generation well, more advanced features (such as complex scripts and styles) can become difficult to manage and debug.

Markdown by DaringFireball features and specs

  • Simplicity
    Markdown is designed to be lightweight and easy to write. The syntax is intuitive and resembles plain text formatting, which makes it accessible to both technical and non-technical users.
  • Readability
    Because it is plain text, Markdown is inherently human-readable even without rendering. This makes it easier for people to collaborate on documents without the need for complex tools.
  • Portability
    Markdown files are plain text, making them highly portable. They can be opened, edited, and shared across different operating systems and platforms without compatibility issues.
  • Integrations
    Markdown is widely supported and integrated across various platforms, including GitHub, Bitbucket, and Jekyll, as well as a variety of text editors and blogging tools. This allows for seamless workflow integration.
  • Version Control
    Due to its plain text nature, Markdown works exceptionally well with version control systems like Git. This makes tracking changes, merging, and diffs straightforward.

Possible disadvantages of Markdown by DaringFireball

  • Limited Formatting
    Markdown does not support all possible formatting options. Complex layouts and advanced styling, which are easily achievable in HTML or Word processors, can be difficult or impossible to implement.
  • Inconsistent Implementations
    There are many variations and extensions of Markdown, which can lead to inconsistencies in how Markdown files are rendered by different tools and platforms. This can cause compatibility issues.
  • Learning Curve for Advanced Features
    While the basic syntax is simple, more advanced features like tables, footnotes, or embedded HTML may require additional learning and do not always have a consistent syntax across implementations.
  • Dependency on Rendering Tools
    Markdown needs to be processed and rendered into other formats (e.g., HTML) to be useful in many contexts. This means users often depend on specific tools or services to visualize their Markdown content.
  • Lack of Standardization
    Without a formal standard, Markdown can vary in implementation from one parser to another. This lack of standardization can lead to issues with document portability and consistency.

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Prince XML and Markdown by DaringFireball)
HTML To PDF
100 100%
0% 0
Markdown Editor
0 0%
100% 100
PDF Tools
100 100%
0% 0
Text Editors
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Markdown by DaringFireball seems to be a lot more popular than Prince XML. While we know about 87 links to Markdown by DaringFireball, we've tracked only 1 mention of Prince XML. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Prince XML mentions (1)

  • PDF Invoice generator best deployment platform
    Hi, I'm a DocRaptor developer. Thanks for the mention! We're an API service backed by the Prince PDF engine, which enables easier HTML to PDF conversion with more PDF-specific features. Source: over 3 years ago

Markdown by DaringFireball mentions (87)

  • How To Build and Host a Gatsby Blog
    Markdown is a common syntax for writing that is easily converted into HTML. You can read more about markdown from its creator here. Each blog post file you put in this blog folder will be converted to HTML and rendered on your site. Right now, there are three posts in the folder. Delete two of them and keep one (doesn’t matter which you pick). It should be noted that Gatsby expects each blog post to be represented... - Source: dev.to / 4 months ago
  • Add content to your site: Markdown 📝
    Markdown allows you to write using an easy-to-read, easy-to-write plain text format and Astro includes built-in support for Markdown files. In this way you can build your personal blog and any other kinds of projects. In this article we will go to see the features 🎊 Let's start! 🤙. - Source: dev.to / 5 months ago
  • TextBundle
    But what does "net.daringfireball.markdown" mean? Does it mean "parse it using the 1.0.1 Perl script from 2004 on https://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/ "? - Source: Hacker News / 9 months ago
  • TextBundle
    Something that isn’t clear to me from this spec http://textbundle.org/spec/ is the exact format of Markdown that should be used here. I was under the impression that the Gruber original at https://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/ wasn’t well enough specified (unless you want to treat a 20 year old Perl script as a specification) to be interoperable - hence efforts like https://commonmark.org/. - Source: Hacker News / 9 months ago
  • Markdown Is Meant to Be Shown: Stop Hiding the Syntax (2021)
    > if I would take your copyrighted work https://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/ >Markdown is free software, available under a BSD-style open source license. John Gruber's markdown is unmaintained (last updated in 2004), free software, which many people have contributed to to fix oversights and extend its capabilities. This is exactly how fsf is supposed to work. - Source: Hacker News / 9 months ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing Prince XML and Markdown by DaringFireball, you can also consider the following products

WeasyPrint - WeasyPrint is a visual rendering engine for HTML and CSS that can export to PDF.

Typora - A minimal Markdown reading & writing app.

wkhtmltopdf - wkhtmltopdf is an open source (LGPL) command line tools to render HTML into PDF and various image...

StackEdit - Full-featured, open-source Markdown editor based on PageDown, the Markdown library used by Stack Overflow and the other Stack Exchange sites.

DocRaptor - As the only API powered by the Prince HTML-to-PDF engine, DocRaptor provides the best support for complex PDFs with powerful support for headers, page breaks, page numbers, flexbox, watermarks, accessible PDFs, and much more

MarkdownPad - MarkdownPad is a full-featured Markdown editor for Windows. Features: