XSL-FO

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XSL-FO

Making XML Look Good in Print

By Dave Pawson

Publisher: O'Reilly Media

Released: August 2002

Pages: 288

No matter how flexible and convenient digital information has become, we haven't done away with the need to see information in print. Extensible Style Language-Formatting Objects, or XSL-FO, is a set of tools developers and web designers use to describe page printouts of their XML (including XHTML) documents. If you need to produce high quality printed material from your XML documents, then XSL-FO provides the bridge.

XSL-FO is one of the few books to go beyond a basic introduction to the technology. While many books touch on XSL-FO in their treatment of XSLT, this book offers in-depth coverage of XSL-FO's features and strengths. Author Dave Pawson is well known in the XSLT and XSL-FO communities, and maintains the XSLT FAQ. An online version of this book has helped many developers master this technology. XSL-FO is the first time this reference is available in print.

The first part of the book provides an overview of the technology and introduces the XSL-FO vocabulary. The author discusses how to choose among today's implementations, explains how to describe pages, and shows you what is going on in the processor in terms of layout. You'll learn about the basics of formatting and layout as well as readability.

The second part focuses on smaller pieces: blocks, inline structures, graphics, color and character level formatting, concluding by showing how to integrate these parts into a coherent whole. XSL-FO also explores organizational aspects you'll need to consider?how to design your stylesheets strategically rather than letting them evolve on their own.

XSL-FO is more than just a guide to the technology; the book teaches you how to think about the formatting of your documents and guides you through the questions you'll need to ask to ensure that your printed documents meet the same high standards as your computer-generated content. Written for experienced XML developers and web designers, no other book contains as much useful information on this practical technology.

Chapter 1 Planning for XSL-FO
1. XML and Document Processing
2. Choosing Your Print Production Approach
3. Choosing Tools
4. The Future for XSL-FO
Chapter 2 A First Look at XSL-FO
1. An XSL-FO Overview
2. Related Stylesheet Specifications
3. Using XSL-FO as Part of XSL
4. Shorthand, Short Form, and Inheritance
Chapter 3 Pagination
1. Document Classes
2. The Main Parts of an XSL-FO Document
3. Simple Page Master
4. Complex Pagination
5. Page Sequences
Chapter 4 Areas
1. Informal Definition of an Area
2. Area Types
3. Components of an Area
4. Reference Areas
5. Area Positioning
Chapter 5 Blocks
1. Block Basics
2. Blocks for Special Purposes
3. Decorating Blocks
4. Lists
5. Tables
6. Additional Material
Chapter 6 Inline Elements
1. Content
2. Inline Styling
3. Other Uses
Chapter 7 Graphics and Color
1. Graphics
2. Basic Color Usage
3. Color Specification
4. Color Profiles
5. Applicability
Chapter 8 Styling at the Character Level
1. General Character Properties
2. Fonts
Chapter 9 Cross-Document Links
1. Cross-Document Links
2. Indexing and Tables of Contents
3. Running Headers
Chapter 10 Putting It All Together
1. Outline
Chapter 11 Stylesheet Organization
1. Classes of Stylesheets
2. Page Layout
3. Main Flows
4. Inclusion and Importing

Appendix A How Do I Do That?
Appendix B Finding Your Way Around the Specification
1. Overview
2. index.html
3. Section 1
4. Section 2
5. Section 3
6. Section 4
7. Section 5
8. Section 6
9. Section 7
10. Section 8
11. Appendix A
12. Appendix B
13. Appendix C
14. Appendix D
15. Appendix E
16. Appendix F
17. Appendix G
Appendix C Today's Tools
1. RenderX XEP Formatter
2. Antenna House Formatter
3. FOP Formatter
4. PassiveTEX Formatter
5. Unicorn Formatting Objects Formatter
6. Formatting Objects Authoring Tool
7. Render Engine from XML/XSL to PDF
8. jfor, Java XSL-FO to RTF converter
9. XMLmind FO Converter
10. XSLfast
11. Epic Editor V4.2
12. IBM XSL Formatting Objects Composer (XFC)
13. Summary
Appendix D Objects, Properties, and Compliance Levels
1. Basic, Extended or Complete?
2. Property Summary
Appendix E Inheritance Characteristics
1. Font-, Character-, and Spacing-Related Properties
Appendix F Examples for Chapter 10
Appendix G Elements and Valid Properties
1. XSL-FO Elements and Their Properties
2. Properties and the Elements to Which They Apply
Appendix H GNU Free DocumentationLicense (GFDL)
1. Preamble
2. Applicability and Definitions
3. Verbatim Copying
4. Copying in Quantity
5. Modifications
6. Combining Documents
7. Collections of Documents
8. Aggregation with Independent Works
9. Translation
10. Termination
11. Future Revisions of This License
12. Addendum: How to Use This License for Your Documents
Glossary
Colophon

Title:

XSL-FO

By:

Dave Pawson

Publisher:

O'Reilly Media

Formats:

Print
Ebook
Safari Books Online

Print:

August 2002

Ebook:

June 2009

Pages:

288

Print ISBN:

978-0-596-00355-5

| ISBN 10:

0-596-00355-2

Ebook ISBN:

978-0-596-55610-5

| ISBN 10:

0-596-55610-1

Colophon

Our look is the result of reader comments, our own experimentation, and feedback from distribution channels. Distinctive covers complement our distinctive approach to technical topics, breathing personality and life into potentially dry subjects. The animal on the cover of XSL-FO is a pennant-winged nightjar. Pennant-winged nightjars (Macrodipteryx vexillarius) are night-flying birds native to southern parts of Africa. Nightjars are also known in some areas as goatsuckers, because they were once thought to drink the milk ofgoats. However, they are actually insectivores and were probably common near goats because of the insects the animals attract.

Pennant-winged nightjars have long, pointed wings; weak feet; and small, wide bills. Fluffy feathers make them almost noiseless fliers. Males are known for their long, black-and-white, pennant-like feathers that flutter like streamers to attract mates. When a male finds a mate, his long feathers fall off. Linley Dolby was the production editor and proofreader, and Tatiana Apandi Diaz was the copyeditor for XSL-FO. Darren Kelly, Rachel Wheeler, and Claire Cloutier provided quality control. Derek Di Matteo and Phil Dangler provided production support. Brenda Miller wrote the index.

Hanna Dyer designed the cover ofthis book, based on a series design by Edie Freedman. The cover image is a 19th-century engraving from the Dover Pictorial Archive. Emma Colby produced the cover layout with QuarkXPress 4.1 using Adobe's ITC Garamond font.

David Futato designed the interior layout. This book was converted to FrameMaker 5.5.6 with a format conversion tool created by Erik Ray, Jason McIntosh, Neil Walls, and Mike Sierra that uses Perl and XML technologies. The text font is Linotype Birka; the heading font is Adobe Myriad Condensed; and the code font is Lucas-Font's TheSans Mono Condensed. The illustrations that appear in the book were produced by Robert Romano and Jessamyn Read using Macromedia FreeHand 9 and Adobe Photoshop 6. The tip and warning icons were drawn by Christopher Bing. This colophon was written by Linley Dolby.

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oreilly XSL-FO

3.8

(based on 4 reviews)

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Displaying reviews 1-4

9/6/2006

4.0

Sampler Samples :)

By Anonymous

from Undisclosed

Comments about oreilly XSL-FO:

This is probably the best XSL-FO book to date, although it is somewhat complicated. For XSL-FO (and XML/XSLT) examples that are more accessible you may want to read first Ecrion's XSL-FO tutorial (http://www.ecrion.com/XF/TechnicalResources/XSL-FOTutorial/toc.xml.html) , then read again this book.

7/23/2004

4.0

XSL-FO Review

By Matt Gramlich

from Undisclosed

Comments about oreilly XSL-FO:

The author is well versed on the topic and the book reads like a conversation. There is a lot of information contained within its 250 pages and I found the best way to read it was to read through it completely, without trying to grab every term and concept. After completing the book, you will have a very good idea what you can and cannot accomplish with XSL-FO. You should then return to the book as reference material, and more closely scrutinized the chapters that pertain to the task at hand.

Within each chapter there are usually small tips and advise that will help an unexperienced FO developer from spending too much time attempting to force FO to do something that it cannot or was not meant to do. A prior understanding of XSLT will be good before reading this book. In the appendices is a nice comparison of the current FO Parsers and toolkits. I recommend checking the website (http://www.dpawson.co.uk) for more current information regarding FO Parsers.

Additionally, I applaud the author for choosing the GNU Free Document License.

If you are looking for a quick start into XSL-FO, then this is not the book for you. You will be better served reading the XSL-FO chapter in "XML in a Nutshell" and then purusing a XSL-FO Cookbook or online examples. However, if you want to really understand FO stylesheets and master advanced usage, I recommend this book and the W3C specification as your primary reading sources

4/29/2003

3.0

XSL-FO Review

By Douglas Rowe From the Columbia Java Users Group

from Undisclosed

Comments about oreilly XSL-FO:

Armed with only the most rudimentary understanding of XSLT, I found this book a little overwhelming. It's not a "cookbook", though the examples are good. There are a few places where it seems to dwell on minutia, but mostly it moves along at a jog to brisk run pace. I got a better understanding of the topic and and am prepared to do more research, but this could not be my only reference.

1/24/2003

(1 of 1 customers found this review helpful)

4.0

XSL-FO Review

By Robin Joinson

from Undisclosed

Comments about oreilly XSL-FO:

Having learned XML and XSLT fundamentals, I was struggling with XSL-FO until this book came along.

Dave Pawson's exposition of XSL-FO is very well laid out,taking the reader through the various aspects of the XSL-FO specification in a logical order and in a way which enabled me to get results quickly.

The appendices provide a valuable additional resource.

It would be nice to see a companion volume (perhaps in the oreilly workbook style) showing some sample applications developed with some of the leading tools. The relative lack of tool specific information still left me with a lot of work to do and I'm often in the position of not being sure whether there is a compliance issue with the tool I'm using (FOP) or with my level of knowledge.

I would recommend this book to anyone seriously interested in producing printed output from XML.

Displaying reviews 1-4

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Chapter 1 Planning for XSL-FO

XML and Document Processing

Choosing Your Print Production Approach

Choosing Tools

The Future for XSL-FO

Chapter 2 A First Look at XSL-FO

An XSL-FO Overview

Related Stylesheet Specifications

Using XSL-FO as Part of XSL

Shorthand, Short Form, and Inheritance

Chapter 3 Pagination

Document Classes

The Main Parts of an XSL-FO Document

Simple Page Master

Complex Pagination

Page Sequences

Chapter 4 Areas

Informal Definition of an Area

Area Types

Components of an Area

Reference Areas

Area Positioning

Chapter 5 Blocks

Block Basics

Blocks for Special Purposes

Decorating Blocks

Lists

Tables

Additional Material

Chapter 6 Inline Elements

Content

Inline Styling

Other Uses

Chapter 7 Graphics and Color

Graphics

Basic Color Usage

Color Specification

Color Profiles

Applicability

Chapter 8 Styling at the Character Level

General Character Properties

Fonts

Chapter 9 Cross-Document Links

Cross-Document Links

Indexing and Tables of Contents

Running Headers

Chapter 10 Putting It All Together

Outline

Chapter 11 Stylesheet Organization

Classes of Stylesheets

Page Layout

Main Flows

Inclusion and Importing

Appendix A How Do I Do That?

Appendix B Finding Your Way Around the Specification

Overview

index.html

Section 1

Section 2

Section 3

Section 4

Section 5

Section 6

Section 7

Section 8

Appendix A

Appendix B

Appendix C

Appendix D

Appendix E

Appendix F

Appendix G

Appendix C Today's Tools

RenderX XEP Formatter

Antenna House Formatter

FOP Formatter

PassiveTEX Formatter

Unicorn Formatting Objects Formatter

Formatting Objects Authoring Tool

Render Engine from XML/XSL to PDF