Answer to question -- Striping whitespace with LotusXSL

I'm using LotusXSL and have these included in my XSL stylesheet:

<xsl:output method="text" indent="no"\>
<xsl:strip-space elements="*"/>

The resulting text output file still has all the whitespace from my XSL stylesheet. Anyone know how to get rid of it? TIA,

  </xsl:if>
  //
</xsl:template>

  </xsl:if>
  <xsl:text>//</xsl:text>
</xsl:template>

[set global variable]
<xsl:variable name="double_slash" select="'//'"/>

[reference it in template]
  </xsl:if>
  <xsl:value-of select="$double_slash"/>
</xsl:template>