WordMLToFO Stylesheet V2.1

WordML is formally called "Wordprocessor Markup Language". Until now Microsoft Word has the main native file format called binary format (.doc extension) or Rich Text format (.rtf extension). WordML has the XML file format and called fully compatible with these native file formats. In addition, WordML has the following features.

• Unlike the binary format, the specification of WordML is published.
• You can embed user schema tags in WordML which is impossible in RTF nor binary format.
• XML application easily access WordML files using XSLT.

You can build following XML applications based on WordML features:

• Applying XSLT stylesheet to the user XML documents, you can easily generate WordML files. You can view or print generated WordML files using the Word2003.
• Applying XSLT stylesheet to WordML files, you can generate any XML files. It is very useful to convert Word documents stored in the corporate information system using WordML as middle format for Word to XML document conversion.

WordMLToFO stylesheet is one of the applications of the latter case. About WordML, Microsoft c has released its specification on Nov, 2003. If you are interested in WordML, you can download specification from the following URL:

• Office 2003 XML Reference Schemas Licensing

Office 2003 XML Reference Schemas includes the document titled "Overview of WordprocessingML" that simply explains WordML structure and examples.

WordMLToFO style sheet generates the FO file based on the following functions.

Element mapping

Style expansion

WordMLToFO is the stylesheet based on XSLT 1.0 W3C recommendation. It uses some extension function about RTF (Result Tree Fragment). At present we have tested under the following XSLT processors.

Current implementation has the following limitations.

• Some MordML files cannot be formatted correctly.

  Since the document model is different fundamentally between Microsoft Word and XSL-FO, perfect conversion cannot be performed. Therefore, the formatted result may not be outputted correctlly.

• Field

  Word supports many types of field. WordMLToFO Stylesheet transforms fields using its "result text". Many fields have the elements corresponding to the result text, but there exists exceptional pattern. For instance, WordMLToFO Stylesheet cannot offer the text result from special types of field such as list-box.

• Tab character

  When you use Word, tab character is useful for positioning text in the line and it is widely used in creating documents. In contrast XSL-FO has no corresponding functions about tab character. WordMLToFO Stylesheet transforms tab character (w:tab) into XSL-FO fo:leader object. But the original form cannot be reproduced.

• Auto Shape

  Auto Shape is used to draw graphics in Word document. Current WordMLToFO Stylesheet implementation does not support Auto Shape.

• Footnote, Endnote

  Current WordMLToFO Stylesheet implementation does not support footnote/endnote.

• Line Height

  The line height might not be correctly set.

• Hyphenation

  A word in the Word document with hyphenation setting is divided as follows in WordML:

  
  
  <w:t>Fo</w:t>
  
  
  <w:t>r</w:t>
  
  
  <w:t>matter</w:t>
  
  
  

  For that reason, the word is also divided in the transformed FO. As the result, the word cannot be hyphenated.

• Shading cannot be translated because shading is not defined in XSL-FO.
• Documents that contains user schema element cannot be translated, user tag should be removed before translation.

Following is the result using MSXML4 as XSLT processor. Click image to get large one. (The document content is a fiction.)

Word view of the original Word document

Format the result FO using XSL Formatter

You can download sample data from here.

• Word2003 documents (sample-word.zip)

The WordMLToFO Stylesheet (except for the source code) is built in V4.1. Please download the evaluation version 4.1 and confirm the formatted result of your own document.

If you are interested in WordMLToFO Stylesheet, please feel free to contact us via E-mail.

• E-mail:support@antennahouse.com