XSL Formatting Objects XSLFO

1
XSL Formatting Objects(XSL-FO)
2
Overview

• The names of most XML elements describe the
  semantic meaning of the content they contain
• The content needs to be formatted and displayed
  to users
• There must be a step where formatting information
  is applied to the XML document and the semantic
  markup is transformed into presentation markup
• Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)
• XSL Formatting Objects (XSL-FO)

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XSL-FO

• XSL-FO is a complete XML application for
  describing the precise layout of text on a page.
• XSL-FO has elements that represent pages, blocks
  of text on the pages, graphics, horizontal rules,
  and more
• XSLT XSL-FO
• Most of the time, you write an XSLT stylesheet
  that transforms your document's native markup
  into XSL-FO
• there is normally a third step in which another
  processor transforms the XSL-FO into a third
  format, such as PDF and TeX
• Example used 13-1.xml (the same as 12-1.xml)

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XSL-FO
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XML Formatting Objects

• An XSL-FO document describes the layout of a
  series of nested boxes or areas that are placed
  on one or more pages
• these boxes contain text or occasionally other
  items, such as an external image or a horizontal
  rule
• Four kinds of boxes
• Block areas created by particular elements in
  XSL-FO documents
• Inline areas created by particular elements in
  XSL-FO documents
• Line areas created by the formatter as
  necessary
• Glyph areas created by the formatter as
  necessary

6
Content, Padding, Border, and Margin of a Box
It was in Warwick Castle that I came across the
curious stranger whom I am going to talk about.
He attracted me by three things his candid
simplicity, his marvelous familiarity, with
ancient armor, and the restfulness
Content
Padding
Border
Margin
7
Content, Padding, Border, and Margin of a Box
(Cont.)

• Each box has a content area in which its content
  is placed
• This content area is surrounded by a padding area
  of blank space
• An optional border can surround the padding. The
  size of the area is the combined size of the
  border, padding, and content
• The box may also have a margin that adds blank
  space outside the box's area

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Content, Padding, Border, and Margin of a Box
(Cont.)

• Text properties such as font family, font size,
  alignment, and font weight can be applied by
  attaching the appropriate properties to one of
  the boxes that contains the text
• Text takes on the properties specified on the
  nearest enclosing box
• Properties are set by attaching attributes to the
  elements that generate the boxes
• For the most part these properties have the same
  semantics as the CSS properties of the same name
  (only syntax is different)

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The Structure of an XSL-FODocument

• The root element of all XSL-FO documents is
  foroot
• fo prefix must be mapped to http//www.w3.org/1999
  /XSL/Format
• lt?xml version"1.0" encoding"utf-8"?gt
• ltforoot xmlnsfo"http//www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Form
  at"gt
• lt!-- Formatting object elements --gt
• lt /forootgt

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folayout-master-set and fopage-sequence

• The foroot element must contain two things
• folayout-master-set contains elements
  describing the overall layout the pages
  themselves (size, landscape or portrait, margin
  width)
• fopage-sequence contains the actual text that
  will be placed on the pages, along with the
  instructions for formatting the text (font
  style)
• Use a master-reference attribute to identify the
  particular master page that will be used to
  layout the content
• The formatting engine uses the layout master set
  to create a page. Then it adds content to the
  page from the fopage-sequence until the page is
  full. Then it creates the next page in the
  sequence and places the next batch of content on
  that page. And so on

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An XSLFO Framework

• lt?xml version"1.0" encoding"utf-8"?gt
• ltforoot xmlnsfo"http//www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Form
  at"gt
• ltfolayout-master-setgt
• lt!-- page masters --gt
• lt/folayout-master-setgt
• ltfopage-sequence master-reference"first"gt
• lt!-- data to place on the page --gt
• lt/!--gtlt/fopage-sequencegt
• lt/forootgt

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Laying Out the Master Pages

• XSL-FO 1.0 only defines one kind of master page,
  the fosimple-page-master
• A standard rectangular page with margins on all
  four sides
• This master page also has a unique name given by
  a master-name attribute
• ltfosimple-page-master margin-right"1in"
  margin-left"1in"
• margin-bottom"1in" margin-top"1in"
  page-width"8.5in"
• page-height"11in" master-name"first"gt
• lt!-- Separate parts of the page go here
  --gt
• lt/fosimple-page-mastergt

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Laying Out the Master Pages (Cont.)

• The part of the page inside the margins is
  divided into five regions start, end, before,
  after, body
• Where the five regions fall depend on the writing
  direction
• The five regions are represented by
  foregion-start, foregion-end, foregion-before,
  foregion-after, foregion-body child elements of
  the fosimple-page-master element
• You can place different content into each of the
  five regions
• The body region and the corresponding
  foregion-body are required
• By default, the body region takes up the entire
  page
• Use extent attribute to the four nonbody regions
  to specify the height of the before and after
  regions and the width of the start and end regions

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Laying Out the Master Pages (Cont.)

• lt?xml version"1.0" encoding"utf-8"?gt
• ltforoot xmlnsfo"http//www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Form
  at"gt
• ltfolayout-master-setgt
• ltfosimple-page-master margin-right"1in"
  margin-left"1in"
• margin-bottom"1in" margin-top"1in"
  page-width"8.5in"
• page-height"11in" master-name"first"gt
• ltforegion-body /gt
• lt/fosimple-page-mastergt
• lt/folayout-master-setgt
• ltfopage-sequence master-reference"first"gt
• lt!-- data to place on the page --gt
• lt/!--gtlt/fopage-sequencegt
• lt/forootgt

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The Five Regions in a left-to-right,
top-to-bottom writing system
top-margin
region-before
It was in Warwick Castle that I came across the
curious stranger whom I am going to talk about.
He attracted me by three things his candid
simplicity, his marvelous familiarity, with
ancient armor, and the restfulness
left-margin
right-margin
region-body
region-after
bottom-margin
region-start
region-end
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Laying Out the Master Pages (Cont.)

• ltfosimple-page-master margin-right"50pt"
  margin-left"50pt" margin-bottom"50pt"
  margin-top"50pt" page-width"792pt"
  page-height"612pt" master-name"slide"gt
• ltforegion-before extent"50pt"/gt
• ltforegion-body margin-bottom"50pt"
  margin-top"75pt"/gt ltforegion-after
  extent"25pt"/gt
• lt/fosimple-page-mastergt

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Laying Out the Master Pages (Cont.)

• ltfosimple-page-master margin-right"0.5in"
  margin-left"0.5in"
• margin-bottom"0.5in" margin-top"0.5in"
  page-width"8.5in"
• page-height"11in" master-name"first"gt
• ltforegion-before extent"0.5in" /gt
• ltforegion-start extent"0.5in" /gt
• ltforegion-after extent"0.5in" /gt
• ltforegion-end extent"0.5in" /gt
• ltforegion-body margin-top"1.0in"
  margin-bottom"1.0in"
• margion-left"1.0in" margin-right"1.0in"
  /gt
• lt/fosimple-page-mastergt

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Flowing Content into the Pages

• Add a foflow child to fopage-sequence where the
  actual text of the actual text of the transformed
  document appears
• flow-name attribute specifying into which region
  of the page its content will flow. Possible
  values include xsl-region-body, xsl-region-start,
  xsl-region-end, xsl-region-before,
  xsl-region-after
• The formatter instantiates a page based on the
  master page named by the fopage-sequence's
  master-reference attribute, fill one of its
  regions with content from the foflow element
  until the page is full, then second page, third

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Flowing Content into the Pages (Cont.)

• The foflow element must contain block-level
  formatting object elements
• foblock, foblock-container, folist-block,
  fotable, fotable-and-caption
• A foblock can contain a combination of raw text
  and formatting objects such as foexternal-graphic
  , foinline, fopage-number, fofootnote, and
  even other foblock elements

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Flowing Content into the Pages (Cont.)

• ltfoflow flow-name"xsl-region-body"gt
• ltfoblockgtSouthern Corn Breadlt/foblockgt
• ltfoblockgt
• 1 cup
• flour
• lt/foblockgt
• ltfoblockgt
• 4 tablespoons
• Royal Baking Powder
• lt/foblockgt
• lt/foflowgt

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Generating the Finished Document

• XSL-FO formatting program Apache XML Project's
  open source FOP (http//xml.apache.org/fop/)
• Java Version
• After you install FOP, run the fop.bat
• fop cornbread.fo awt
• fop cornbread.fo pdf cornbread.pdf
• fop -xml 13-1.xml -xsl 13-2.xsl -awt

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XSL-FO Properties

• Adding the sparkle of different fonts, bold
  headlines, bulleted lists, and other desirable
  formatting features requires setting the relevant
  properties on the individual formatting objects
• Most of the property names and semantics are
  exactly the same as they are for CSS
• ltfoblock font-weight"bold"gtSouthern Corn
  Breadlt/foblockgt
• In a few cases CSS properties become XSL-FO
  elements
• folist-block, folist-item, folist-item-label,
  folist-item-body

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XSL-FO XSLT

• 13-1.xml
• 13-2.xsl

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Choosing Between CSS and XSL-FO

• CSS is right for web pages
• XSL-FO is right for printed matter
• Multiple column layouts
• Condition formatting on what's actually in the
  document
• Place footnotes, running headers, and other
  information in the margins of a page
• Insert page numbers and automatically
  cross-reference particular pages by number
• XSLT is a crucial step in getting an input
  document ready for eventual presentation with
  either CSS or XSL-FO