Subject:xsl to xslfo Author:W Steiner Date:11 Apr 2003 01:01 PM
I can not figure out how to convert my xsl file to an xslfo file to convert my xml file to a pdf file.
I've tried setting the post process with Apache FOP and nothing happens. Basically I want my initial XSLT file generated from you software converted to a FOP XSLFO file so I can use it in a Java program to transform my xml to pdf.
Subject:xsl to xslfo Author:Minollo I. Date:11 Apr 2003 09:33 PM
Bill,
I'm not sure I understand what you are trying to do.
XSL-FO is an XML standard which allows you to create richly formatted documents; in many cases it's compared to PostScript and PDF; Apache FOP is able to convert an XSL-FO document into PostScript, PDF and other.
XSLT is a language which is able to transform an XML document in a different format; that may be another XML document with different schema and content, text, HTML.
The usual programming model that we have seen people use when they mix XSLT and XSL-FO is that they have an XSLT script which is applied to an XML document (the one which contains the raw data that needs to be properly formatted) to create an XSL-FO grammar; then they use Apache FOP or equivalent engines to render the XSL-FO document into PostScript or PDF.
Stylus Studio will help you creating an XSLT script which generated XSL-FO; but only as long as auto-completion of tags goes. And then you'll be able to preview your XSL-FO document as PDF in the preview window (through the post-processing step).
I guess what you would like is an XML-to-FO WYSIWYG module that create the proper XSLT for you without coding... but that's not available at this point.
Subject:xsl to xslfo Author:d p Date:17 Apr 2005 06:12 AM
As per minollo i's message you will need to develop another xsl and apply it to your xml file using an FOP (Formatting Objects Processor).
Apache FOP is probably the most widely adopted opensource solution, although I'm sure there are a variety of commercial application that do the same thing.
XSL-FO is also a standard still "under development" by the W3C, with syntax and tagging similar to XML but more complex to learn given the output is for print.
I too am looking for a WYSIWYG tool that would aid in developing xsl's for content conversion to PDF until I am up to speed with XSL-FO.
Hope this at least points you in the right direction.