XSL

Or XSL-FO, formatting XML data for output to screen, paper or other media. Most important usage now is to convert to PDF.

Complete Standard here: https://www.w3.org/TR/2006/REC-xsl11-20061205/

W3Schools: http://w3schools.sinsixx.com/xslfo/xslfo_reference.asp.htm

Structure:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>

<fo:root xmlns:fo="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Format">

Under root:

• <layout-master-set> : all page templates goes here
  • <fo:simple-page-master master-name="name"> : one page template
• <page-sequence master-reference="name"> : page contents

Areas : pages > (contains) regions > block areas > line areas > inline areas

Common model: page-sequence > flow > block

Page: printed media has many pages, browser output usually just one long page

• Defined by page masters
• see http://w3schools.sinsixx.com/xslfo/xslfo_pages.asp.htm to define
  • page width / height
  • margins
  • regions (they are part of the body. to avoid overwrite, body region must have margins at least the size of the other border regions)

Regions:

• region-body
• region-before (header)
• region-after (footer)
• region-start (left sidebar)
• region-end (right)

Block areas:

• paragraphs, tables, lists, etc.
• can contain other block areas
• see http://w3schools.sinsixx.com/xslfo/xslfo_blocks.asp.htm for model (space, margin, border, padding, background, styling)
• list-block http://w3schools.sinsixx.com/xslfo/xslfo_lists.asp.htm
  • list-item
  • list-item-label list-item-body
• table-and-caption http://w3schools.sinsixx.com/xslfo/xslfo_tables.asp.htm

Line areas : text lines

Inline areas: text inside lines (bullets, single character, graphics and more)

Output model: "blocks" of content "flows" into "pages" then to the output media. <fo:flow> defines the output. It contains all elements to be printed to the page. When page is full, same page master will be used over and over again until all text is printed. "flow-name" refers to where the content goes, valid values are:

• xsl-region-body (into the region-body)
• xsl-region-before (into the region-before)
• xsl-region-after (into the region-after)
• xsl-region-start (into the region-start)
• xsl-region-end (into the region-end)

Howto:

Footnote: http://www.dpawson.co.uk/xsl/sect3/footnotes.html