XSL-FO Documentation

XSL-FO documents are XML files with output information.

XSL-FO Documentation

XSL-FO documents are XML files with output information. They contain information about the output layout and content.

XSL-FO documents are stored in files with the .fo or .fob extension. It is also common to store XSL-FO documents with the .xml extension, which makes it easier for XML editors to access XSL-FO documents.

Structure of XSL-FO document

The document structure of XSL-FO is similar to this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<fo:root xmlns:fo="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Format">
<fo:layout-master-set>
  <fo:simple-page-master master-name="A4">
    <!-- Page template goes here -->
  </fo:simple-page-master>
</fo:layout-master-set>
<fo:page-sequence master-reference="A4">
  <!-- Page content goes here -->
</fo:page-sequence>
</fo:root>

Structure Explanation

An XSL-FO document is an XML document because it also needs to start with an XML declaration:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>

The <fo:root> element is the root element of an XSL-FO document. This root element also needs to declare the XSL-FO namespace:

<fo:root xmlns:fo="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Format">
  <!-- This is the content of the XSL-FO document -->
</fo:root>

The <fo:layout-master-set> element contains one or more page templates:

<fo:layout-master-set>
  <!-- This is all the page templates -->
</fo:layout-master-set>

The <fo:simple-page-master> element contains a single page template. Each template must have a unique name (master-name):

<fo:simple-page-master master-name="A4">
  <!-- This is a page template -->
</fo:simple-page-master>

One or more <fo:page-sequence> elements can describe the content of the page. The master-reference attribute uses the same name to refer to the simple-page-master template:

<fo:page-sequence master-reference="A4">
  <!-- This is the page content -->
</fo:page-sequence>

Note:The value "A4" of master-reference actually does not describe a predefined page format. It is just a name. You can use any name, such as "MyPage", "MyTemplate", and so on.