XSL Formatter V2 Q&A

Yes, there are some differences. You should take care to change several points in XSLT Stylesheets in order to use the stylesheets with XSL Formatter V2.

This is the abbreviated name of "Extensible Stylesheet Language" (XSL) specification that is the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Recommendation. XSL is developed to layout and print XML documents for mainly paper media.

Formatting objects are XML elements that have the semantics of layout designation. This is a sample of a formatting object.

<fo:block
  font-size="14pt"
  space-before="0.5em"
  space-before.precedence="1"
  space-after="0.5em"
  keep-with-next.within-page="always"
  keep-with-next.within-column="always"
  start-indent="10mm"
  end-indent="10mm"
  id="IDwfmY1">
Text string of title content of fo:block element
</fo:block>

Normally, XML source document which is supposed to be displayed and printed, and the stylesheet (XSLT stylesheet) in which the rule to transform the XML document into XSL-FO is required. XSL-FO is generated by inputting these two to XSLT Processor. The generated XSL-FO is a well-formed XML file and it is a file to be formatted.

A software for formatting XSL-FO files is called XSL-FO processor. "XSL Formatter" is a product name of XSL-FO processor developed by Antenna House, Inc.

XML can be displayed by transforming into HTML, using Internet Explorer6. The main purpose or HTML and Browser is to browse information of computer display, it is not so useful for specifying the layout according to the paper size, formatting clearly as it is specified, outputting to paper. The feature of the XSL-FO is to be able to specify the layout per page and the feature of the XSL Formatter is to be able to format as it is specified.

You can define element names flexibly in XML. Application software cannot decide printing forms by element names. In contrast, in HTML, the element names are fixed, browser can decide the printing forms by the element name.

The stylesheet in this context is called XSLT stylesheet, to be precise. This is a file that contains transforming rules for XSLT processor. The transforming rules are called template rules, they say about the instructions that influence the way that source XML documents are converted into output documents.

No. Prepare one standard stylesheet for the set of one DTD and layout designation. The reason is as follows. XSLT Stylesheet transforms one XML tree structure to another XML tree structure. XML tree structure is determined by tag set. You may develop one XSLT Stylesheet for each one tree transformations.

You need to study the semantics of both XSL Formatting Object and XSLT stylesheet. Since they are standards developed by W3C, there have been a lot of people who study the semantics. People who develop stylesheets that transform XML into HTML by using XSLT is increasing rapidly in these days. Some books on XSLT/XSL are published. You also have to learn about XSL specification.

No. These two stylesheets are quite different. As they use the same XSLT, the grammar of the stylesheets is the same; the contents written in stylesheets are different. To be concrete, output elements in template rules are HTML elements in XML to HTML stylesheet. While output elements in template rules are formatting objects in XML to XSL-FO stylesheet.

We provided the tutorial "How to Develop Stylesheets for XML to XSL-FO Transformation". Please refer to this page.

For the present, there are no good tools to develop XSLT stylesheet in GUI easily.

We have prepared one sample XSLT Stylesheet for the purpose. Please refer to this page.

No. It is impossible to validate FO documents by DTD. Because in XSL Specification, Fo parameter is not defined by DTD. Therefore it has no meaning to validate FO documents by specifying DTD. If error doesn't occur with the DTD, there may be a possibility of being a valid FO. If error occurs with the DTD, there may be a possibility of being an invalid FO. It may be useful to use DTD if you understand the above situation.

The answer is written in the XSL V1.0 W3C Recommendation, as follows:

"The 1999 in the URI indicates the year in which the URI was allocated by the W3C. It does not indicate the version of XSL being used."

<xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"
 xmlns:fo="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Format" version="1.0">