- Chapter 1: Essential XSLT
- A Little Background
- XML Documents
- What Does XML Look Like in a Browser?
- XSLT Transformations
- Making an XSLT Transformation Happen
- Using Standalone XSLT Processors
- Using Browsers to Transform XML Documents
- Using XSLT and JavaScript in the Internet Explorer
- XSLT Transformations on Web Servers
- XML-to-XHTML Transformations
- XSLT Resources
- XSL Formatting Objects: XSL-FO
- XSL-FO Resources
- Formatting an XML Document
- The XSLT Stylesheet
- Transforming a Document into FormattingObject Form
- Creating a Formatted Document
XSL Formatting Objects: XSL-FO
The most popular part of XSL is the XSLT transformation part that you've already seen in this chapter. The other, and far larger, part is the XSL Formatting Objects part, XSL-FO.
Using XSL-FO, you can specify down to the millimeter how an XML document should be formatted and displayed. You specify everything for your documents: the text font, position, alignment, color, flow, indexing, margin size, and more. It's sort of like writing a word processor by hand, and the complexity of XSL-FO makes some people reluctant to use it. You'll learn more about what XSL-FO has to offer and how to use it in Chapters 11 and 12.