rofd
OFD parser and renderer library, in Rust.

Introduction

OFD (Open Form Document) is an open standard for electronic documents, which is widely used in China. Unlike PDF, which is a layout-based format, OFD is a semantic-based format, which means it stores the document structure and text information separately. This makes OFD documents more flexible and easier to edit than PDFs. OFD also supports more features than PDF, such as form filling and digital signatures.

Project status

• rofd-core: safe OFD container, metadata/DocID/keywords, document outlines, page link mappings, page content, clipping, and recursively resolved template layers.
• rofd-render: backend-neutral display lists plus bounded Cairo rendering for paths, positioned text, PNG/JPEG images, clipping, transforms, rotation, and pixel viewports without a full-page raster allocation.
• rofd-ffi: stable, versioned C ABI for rofd-core and Cairo rendering, with independently owned metadata, warning, outline, and page-link snapshots.
• Root rofd package: legacy Cairo rendering prototype kept during migration.
• Qt/QML reader: design approved; implementation follows the C ABI phase.

The target architecture and phased roadmap are documented in docs/superpowers/specs/2026-09-03-rofd-library-reader-design.md. The active text-and-image plan is in docs/superpowers/plans/2026-09-05-rofd-text-image-rendering.md. The deepin-reader integration API contracts are described in crates/rofd-ffi/README.md.

Test the reusable libraries

cargo fmt --all -- --check
cargo clippy -p rofd-core -p rofd-render -p rofd-ffi --all-targets -- -D warnings
cargo test -p rofd-core -p rofd-render -p rofd-ffi
cargo test -p rofd-ffi
crates/rofd-ffi/tests/run_c_tests.sh

rofd-render requires Cairo and FreeType/fontconfig for configured system-font fallback. rofd-core remains Cairo-, image-codec-, Qt-, and QML-free. Detailed content support and compatibility limits are documented in the rofd-core and rofd-render READMEs.

Run the Qt prototype

cargo run -p rofd --features qt-reader --bin rofd [file.ofd]

The Qt command requires the system Qt6 development dependencies used by qmetaobject. The prototype opens OFD documents via the "Open…" button (or a path passed on the command line), renders pages through rofd-core and rofd-render, and supports page navigation. Note the -p rofd flag: the root package is not part of the workspace's default-members.

Project structure

This project is organized into the following directories and files:

• crates/rofd-core/: independent document parsing and query crate.
• crates/rofd-render/: display-list lowering and bounded Cairo renderer.
• crates/rofd-ffi/: stable C header, Rust implementation, and independent C/C++ consumer tests.
• crates/rofd-render/tests/real_fixture.rs: end-to-end invoice fixture regression without generated artifacts.
• src/: legacy parser and Cairo renderer retained during migration.
• src/bin/rofd: legacy Qt/QML prototype.
• src/lib.rs: legacy library crate.
  • src/document.rs: document parsing and rendering.
  • src/page.rs: page parsing and rendering.
  • src/render.rs: rendering to Cairo surface.
  • src/types.rs: types used in OFD spec.
  • src/elements.rs: OFD elements.
  • src/ofd.rs: OFD file parsing.
• learning/: learning notes and examples.
• docs/superpowers/: architecture specifications and implementation plans.
• resources/: resources, such as the logo.
• LICENSE: license file.
• Cargo.toml: cargo configuration file.
• README.md: this readme file.

Reference projects

• ofdrw
• ofd-parser
• poppler

License

This project is under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License v2.1 or later.