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 animals on the cover of XSLT Cookbook are red mullet fish. These colorful striped fish are native to warm European seas. They are bottom dwellers who feed on small invertebrates such as crustaceans, worms, and mollusks, along with the occasional small fish. Red mullet are also called goatfish, as they have two flexible whisker-like appendages that hang from their chin. These organs, called barbels, are covered with taste buds to help red mullet locate their food and dig into ocean sand. The fish usually weigh one-half to two pounds and can grow as long as two feet, but most are much smaller. They have a deeply forked tail fin, two dorsal fins, and corresponding pectoral and anal fins. Red mullet are indeed pink to bright red in color, with three or four yellow stripes running lengthwise along their side. Considerable changes in color occur depending on the time of day, stress factors, and age.

Seafood chefs have always prized the red mullet for its firm, lean flesh, subtle flavor, and intense color. The fish is found on menus throughout Europe, but is rarely available in the United States. Red mullet is sometimes called the woodcock of the sea because, like the woodcock, it can be eaten with its innards intact. There are around forty known subspecies, but two types are most popular for food: Mullus surmuletus is commonly found in the Atlantic, around the south coast of Britain, and Mullus barbatus is a more delicate Mediterranean variety. The latter fish was a favorite of ancient Romans, who proudly displayed live red mullet on the dinner table immediately before handing them over to the cook. Stock was kept in large lagoons, and zealous gourmands paid fabulous prices for any specimen above average size. Jeffrey Holcomb was the production editor and proofreader for XSLT Cookbook. Ann Schirmer was the copyeditor. Matt Hutchinson and Claire Cloutier provided quality control. Indexing services were provided by Octal Publishing.

Ellie Volckhausen designed the cover of this 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 Philip Dangler.