XSL to create positional ASCII text layout

I would like to use XSL to create plain ASCII text reports
using XML as a data source.  The major requirement is
to be able to place a field in a specific spot on the page,
say "row 6, column 10".

I created an XSL stylesheet that partially worked, however
the whitespace in the XSL was semantic.  This resulted in 
some very messy XSL. 

Can what I want to do be done with just transformations?  Or
should I be thinking about modelling my reports with 
XSL formatting instructions and building ( or does one exist?)
a formatter to create these ASCII reports.

We are using the MSXML parser/processor.


 XSL-List info and archive:  http://www.mulberrytech.com/xsl/xsl-list