Xsl Fo (Paperback)

~ Dave Pawson (Author)
Key Phrases: area positioning, inline styling, nominal font, First Look, Simple Page Master, Pagination Example (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"There's a lot to be learnt before you create your first XSL-FO style sheet, and this book is the ideal guide to get you through those first steps - it will also serve as a long-lasting reference for XSL-FO experts." PC Plus, January 2003

Product Description

No matter how flexible and convenient digital information has become, we haven't done away with the need to see information in print. Extensible Style Language-Formatting Objects, or XSL-FO, is a set of tools developers and web designers use to describe page printouts of their XML (including XHTML) documents. XSL-FO is one of the few books to go beyond a basic introduction to the technology. While many books touch on XSL-FO in their treatment of XSLT, this book offers in-depth coverage of XSL-FO's features and strengths. Author Dave Pawson is well known in the XSLT and XSL-FO communities, and maintains the XSLT FAQ. XSL-FO is more than just a guide to the technology; the book teaches you how to think about the formatting of your documents and guides you through the questions you'll need to ask to ensure that your printed documents meet the same high standards as your computer-generated content. Written for experienced XML developers and web designers, no other book contains as much useful information on this practical technology.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 264 pages
• Publisher: O'Reilly Media; 1st edition (August 15, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0596003552
• ISBN-13: 978-0596003555
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #175,141 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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  #2 in	Books > Computers & Internet > Programming > Languages & Tools > XSL
  #30 in	Books > Computers & Internet > Programming > Languages & Tools > XML

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Not a book for the faint of heart, January 15, 2003

By	Foti Massimo (Vezia (Switzerland)) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

An interesting book covering a powerful but niche technology. Not a book for the faint of heart, get it only if you want to investigate this very specific topic or plan to do things like XML > PDF transformation. The author digs immediately into the technical details, condensing a relevant amount of info in less than 200 pages; the results are good, focused and well structured, but it's not an entertaining read. This is definitely not a beginner book. A decent understanding of XML, XSL and XPath is required; some knowledge of printing would be helpful too

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Show me XSL-FO, not XSLT, November 24, 2002

By	Tripp Lilley (Blacksburg, VA USA) - See all my reviews

My main gripe with this book is the manner in which the author chose to present the material.

Rather than focusing on "literal" XSL-FO, the author gives fragments of XSLT stylesheets that produce the XSL-FO. This means that the path to understanding the XSL-FO in the examples goes through XSLT.

While I understand the author's point in choosing this presentation (that no one will "really" be coding XSL-FO by hand, but will instead be writing XSLT stylesheets to generate XSL-FO from other XML input), I don't agree that it's the best way to explain the material.

I would have preferred to see actual, "complete" fragments of XSL-FO (both with and without larger context). I can draw my own conclusions about structuring the XSLT that I need. What I'm really keen to see is how the XSL-FO itself works, otherwise I've got no clue -what- to generate.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Apparently, too large a topic for one book., January 7, 2003

By	Douglas Rowe (the Columbia Java Users Group, Columbia, SC USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Armed with only the most rudimentary understanding of XSLT, I found this book a little overwhelming. It's not a "cookbook", though the examples are good. There are a few places where it seems to dwell on minutia, but mostly it moves along at a jog to brisk run pace. I got a better understanding of the topic and and am prepared to do more research, but this could not be my only reference.