| Dynamic publishing has long been a vital part of the Web environment. On news, e-commerce, and business Web sites, personalized information is easily combined with style sheets based on technologies like HTML and CSS to produce targeted Web sites. However, HTML and CSS have limited page layout capabilities for richly formatted documents, such as those intended for print or Adobe® PDF. Printed documents use a different set of publishing conventions including footnotes, sidebars, tables, cross-references, page numbers, graphics and images, and features such as page break controls and kerning.
In order to enable publishers to produce visually rich, compound documents that incorporate XML-based data, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) developed the Extensible Stylesheet Language (XSL) family of specifications. The set of Extensible Stylesheet Language Formatting Objects (commonly called XSL-FO) allows developers to define specific layouts and styling for a printed page and to flow XML data into them. Transformations such as XSLT (that convert XML into formattable HTML and CSS) can also be applied to convert XML data to XSL-FO.
Because XSL-FO uses the same styling properties as Web pages to create precisely formatted multipage documents, this makes it the perfect tool for generating PDF documents from Web-based applications. Adobe Document Server is our first product to combine XSL-FO with Adobe formatting technologies. This allows Adobe Document Server users to leverage Adobe FrameMaker® for designing templates and defining styles.
Note: Adobe Document Server does not support Japanese character rendering in XSL-FO.
More information
What is XSL-FO? When should I use it?
Read The Seybold Report.
(PDF: 565K)
What is XSL-FO?
An accessible, introductory overview of XSL-FO by G. Ken Holman at XML.com. Includes historical context, examples, basic concepts, and more. A good way for beginners to become acquainted with the technology.
W3C: Extensible Stylesheet Language (XSL) recommendation
A lengthy technical specification for XSL and Formatting Objects, produced by the World Wide Web consortium. Recommended for serious developers only.
Yahoo Groups! XSL-FO
An active online community and discussion board for XSL-FO programmers and others interested in the technology.
W3C XSL-FO list
A message board, hosted by the W3C, dedicated to questions about XSL-FO.
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