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Real-world use of XSL-FO: the promise of XML in printing. (XSL-FO).

Article Excerpt
The XSL-FO 1.0 Recommendation now more than a year old, and it's exciting to see a number of commercial implementations and open-source or free projects available for the Extensible Stylesheet Language Formatting Objects. One such implementation is at Crane Softwrights Ltd., where XSL-FO is used extensively on a daily basis for quality print-oriented results.

Formatting objects express the semantics of paginated formatting intent. To get professional-quality print results from XML, you transform XML instances into instances of the XML vocabulary that has been associated with the formatting semantics. Much as you'd transform your XML instances into instances of HTML for display in Web browsers, XSL-FO formatting engines interpret your intent expressed in instances of the XSL-FO XML vocabulary to produce a paginated result.

Pagination differs from the infinite-length, variable-width browser screens we've become so very used to working with. But for many developers, paginated, page-based, fixed-size-folio printable results have been left by the wayside while they focus on the HTML displays they're comfortable with. This, unfortunately, leaves a whole constituency of potential users of Web services and XML-encoded information disenfranchised. Think of those nondevelopers you know who still rely on the printed form, perhaps printing out every e-mall message or every Web screen so they can...