FO Tips and Tricks

Examples in this set share a common simple XML markup. The backbone XSLT stylesheet generic.xsl contains basic templates that produce valid XSL FO (XSLFO) documents given one of these examples. Most individual XML files have a complementary stylesheet that demonstrates specific XSL FO techniques employed for a particular use case or trick. All these stylesheets import generic.xsl backbone. Images referenced in this set can be downloaded here: images.zip.

Character-by-character font selection strategy

Explains use of font-selection-strategy attribute with character-by-character value for texts in mixed languages or different charsets.

Source XML: charbychar.xml
Stylesheets needed: generic.xsl
Output: charbychar.fo charbychar.pdf

Creating drop capitals using side floats

Create dropped capitals from either plain text or image.

Source XML: dropcap.xml
Stylesheets needed: generic.xsl dropcap.xsl
Output: dropcap.fo dropcap.pdf

Basic use of side floats

Shows how to use <fo:float> elements with different values of clear property to create incuts (illustrations) and floating headers.

Source XML: float.xml
Stylesheets needed: generic.xsl float.xsl
Output: float.fo float.pdf

Fonts embedding

Embeds fonts of different types (Type1, TrueType, CJK) and shows appopropiate configuration settings.

Source XML: fontembed.xml
Stylesheets needed: generic.xsl
Output: fontembed.fo fontembed.pdf

Scaling images using scale-to-fit

Scales down images using scale-to-fit value of content-width and content-height traits.

Source XML: image-scale.xml
Stylesheets needed: generic.xsl image-scale.xsl
Output: image-scale.fo image-scale.pdf

Creating document indexes using RenderX extensions

Creates document indexes using RenderX extensions. Single-page and range references, different styling for index entries.

Source XML: index.xml
Stylesheets needed: generic.xsl index.xsl
Output: index.fo index.pdf

Creating marginalia using side floats

Creates marginalia (notes on margins synchronized with the main text) using <fo:float> elements together with margin property.

Source XML: marginalia.xml
Stylesheets needed: generic.xsl marginalia.xsl
Output: marginalia.fo marginalia.pdf

Instream SVG in XSL FO (XSLFO): Tree graphs

Creates XSL FO (XSLFO) document with embedded SVG graphic generated from arbitrary XML data. Shows one possible usecase of SVG usage - generation of tree graphs from phrase constituent structures.

Source XML: svg1.xml
Stylesheets needed: generic.xsl svg1.xsl
Output: svg1.fo svg1.pdf

Instream SVG in XSL FO (XSLFO): Diagrams

Creates XSL FO (XSLFO) document with embedded SVG graphic generated from arbitrary XML data. Shows one possible usecase of SVG usage - generation of a diagram based on numeric data stored in XML.

Source XML: svg2.xml
Stylesheets needed: generic.xsl svg2.xsl
Output: svg2.fo svg2.pdf

Use of rx:table-omit-initial-header parameter

Shows use of rx:table-omit-initial-header RenderX extension attribute to create continuation headers in tables.

Source XML: table-header.xml
Stylesheets needed: generic.xsl table-header.xsl
Output: table-header.fo table-header.pdf

Decimal point alignment using fo:list-block or fo:leader

Emulates the effect of text-alignment="." using fo:list-block or fo:leader elements.

Source XML: decalign.xml
Stylesheets needed: generic.xsl decalign.xsl
Output: decalign.fo decalign.pdf