xslfo process

Hi,

I'm new to xslfo but I have been using xslt for a while. My question is, what is the best practice to output xml to pdf? As far as I understand, those are the step involved:

1. xml -> xslfo through xslt
2. xslfo -> pdf through FOP

But when writing xsl for step 1, I have to put all the fo coding inside xsl for the formatting. It seems to be very distracting.

If I know what data I want from the xml file and what design I want for the pdf output, is it possible to build the fo file first and add the xsl piece later on? I saw that xmlspy provides a tool to generate xsl:fo file from a design. Is this a good tool to use?

Any help is highly appreciated!

Ming