The Extensible Stylesheet Language (XSL)
XSL is a language for expressing stylesheets. It consists of three parts: XSL Transformations (XSLT): a language for transforming XML documents, the XML Path Language (XPath), an expression language used by XSLT to access or refer to parts of an XML document. (XPath is also used by the XML Linking specification). The third part is XSL Formatting Objects: an XML vocabulary for specifying formatting semantics. An XSL stylesheet specifies the presentation of a class of XML documents by describing how an instance of the class is transformed into an XML document that uses the formatting vocabulary. For a more detailed explanation of how XSL works, see the What Is XSL page.
For background information on style sheets, see the Web style sheets resource page. XSL is developed by the W3C XSL Working Group (members only) whose charter is to develop the next version of XSL. XSL is part of W3C's Style Activity, whose work is described in the Style Activity Statement.
- XSL-List, main list about XSL
- The XSL-FO list at W3C. Subscription information, archive
- XSL-FO: another mailing list on FOs.
- XSLT: too many to list here. Check dmoz.org.
- XSL Formatter (Win, free evaluation version)
- XSLFast (Java, free evaluation version)
- XEP (Java, free evaluation version)
- FOP (Java, open source)
- PassiveTeX (TeX, open source)
- Unicorn FOs (TeX, free Windows binaries)
- REXP early implementation based on FOP
- X-smiles (Java, open source)
- Novosoft RTF2FO: RTF to FO converter (Win, Evaluation version)
- jfor: FO to RTF converter (Java, Open Source)
- WH2FO: WordHTML-to-FO (Java, Open Source)
- html2fo (C, Open Source)
- FOA: XSL Authoring Tool (Java, Open Source)
- jFO Java API for FOs (evaluation version available)
- XSL Concepts and Practical Use by P. Grosso and N. Walsh
- XSL Transformation With PHP And Sablotron by Harish Kamath
- How to Develop Stylesheets for XML to XSL-FO TransformationXSL Concepts and Practical Useby Antenna House
- Hands on XSL by Don Day (IBM)
- VBXML tutorial
- XSL Concepts and Practical Use by P. Grosso and N. Walsh, presented at the XML Europe 2000 Conference in Paris, France.
- XSL School from w3schools.
- Introduction to XSL by Miloslav Nic
- Tutorial from iX magazine (German, English)
- XSLT and XPATH: A Guide to XML Transformations by John Robert Gardner and Zarella L. Rendon
- An introduction to XSL Formatting Objects, a book by Dave Pawson, available on-line.
- Chapter 15 of the XML Bible by Elliotte Rusty Harold is about Formatting Objects is available online.
- Miloslav Nic has published a complete FO reference
- The XSL FAQ. A very complete repository of XSL material.
- VBXML reference on XSLT and XPath.
- XSLT Programmer's Reference (2nd edition) by Michael Kay
- XSLT and XPath On The Edge, Unlimited Edition by Jeni Tennison
- XSLT Quickly by Bob DuCharme
- XSLT by Doug Tidwell
- Practical Transformations Using XSLT and XPath, Practical Formatting Using XSLFO and Definitive XSLT and XPath from Crane Softwrights Ltd.
- Chapter 17 of the XML Bible is dedicated to XSLT
- What's New in XSLT 2.0 by Evan Lenz
- What's New in XPath 2.0 by Evan Lenz
- Using XSL Formatting Objects by J. David Eisenberg, from xml.com.
- The XSLT language code library by TopXML
- A few useful XSL tools
- XSL Resources at Oasis
- jeremie.com's XSL pages
- xslt.com, resource list for XSLT
- XML-Web, XSLT site in German
- XSL Resources Plattform (in German)
News
2002-05-06: Updated XSL-FO tutorial
Antenna House have revamped their XSL-FO tutorial and sample page, which is now conformant to the XSL-FO Recommendation. Additionally, they have made available a new XHTML-to-FO stylesheet, as well as XBRL-to-FO.
2002-04-30: New WD of XSLT2 and XPath2
The XSL Working Group has released new working drafts of XSLT 2.0 and XPath 2.0 (joint with the XML Query WG). Many related WDs have also been published by the XML Query WG (see the Technical Reports page). Please send comments to public-qt-comments@w3.org.
2002-03-22: New version of WH2FO
Fabio Giannetti has announced a new version of WH2FO, an open source Word-to-XSL-FO converter.
2002-03-20: Evan Lenz on XPath2
Evan Lenz, of the XSL WG, has written a nice article introducing the new features in XPath 2.0 in xml.com.
2002-03-08: New XSL-FO API
jFO, from Digital Dreams, is a java-API for generating formattings objects (XSL-FO). It includes a RTF-importer. You can render FO to PDF, PCL, PS, SVG, AWT, MIF, TXT and more. (Java, evaluation version available).
2002-03-01: XEP 2.72
RenderX announced the availability of the evaluation version of their XSL-FO formatter, XEP 2.72.
2002-01-31: FOA now Open Source
Fabio Giannetti has made the Java source code of his Formatting Objects authoring tool (FOA) open source. It is now a Sourceforge project and anyone is free to contribute to the code. New features include: tables support, interactive preview.
2002-01-29: New book from Crane Softwrights
G. Ken Holman has announced the release of a new book from Crane Softwrights: Definitive XSLT and XPath, which has the particularity of having been entirely formatted using XSL. A sample chapter is available on line. Crane Softwrights have also produced accessible versions of their on-line books: Practical Transformations Using XSLT and XPath and Practical Formatting Using XSLFO.
2002-01-18: XSL Formatter V2.0
Antenna House has announced the release of XSL Formatter V2.0 As usual, an evaluation version can be downloaded.
2002-01-06: An Introduction to XSL-FO
Dave Pawson has made public an extensive introduction to XSL-FO. Originally meant as a book, it is available on-line "in an attempt to widen understanding of XSL".
$Id: xslpage.html,v 1.1 2002/06/03 15:52:22 mf Exp $.This page was generated using XSLT. The XML source is also available for viewing on an XSLT-enabled browser.