XSL-FO or Extensible Stylesheet Language for Formatting Objects is part of the XML family of standards. It can be used to transform or reorder an XML instance and to specify formatting and pagination characteristics such as font, point size, page layouts, and much more. XSL-FO allows publishers to leverage cost effective, standards based technology for content rendering and publishing. Since the XSL-FO files are themselves XML, they can also be stored and managed in Contenta, providing style management, versioning and even reuse in the same way Contenta brings those benefits to XML content.
With XSL-FO:
- An XML instance and an XSL stylesheet are fed to an XSL engine, which applies the rules and creates the “formatting objects” in a “results file” (also called a “result tree” or “FO file”).
- The results file is rendered, following the characteristics explicitly described in the FO markup, to PDF, PostScript, or some other final format
- Both transformation and formatting rules can be applied at the same time because both kinds of constructs are part of the XSL language.
XyEnterprise has partnered with Antenna House to provide an end-to-end solution using their XSL-Formatter. It can be integrated with Contenta for use with DITA or S1000D, or as a standalone where the XSL-FO processing model is appropriate.
