Message from Dean - May 8th 2007

I am currently testing out a new version of the APF Bridge Component - If you notice any errors within this demo store please drop me a line.

Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 006.74
EAN: 9780672322815
ISBN: 0672322811
Label: Sams
Manufacturer: Sams
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 456
Publication Date: November 11, 2002
Publisher: Sams
Studio: Sams

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Editorial Review:

Product Description:


XSL Formatting Objects Developer's Handbook is a syntactical reference and a guide for developing practical solutions using the complete XSL toolkit. In exploring the available tools and architectures, the book allows programmers to understand and apply XSL as practitioners. XSL-FO is a complex specification that provides a framework for describing detailed document formatting characteristics. A primary goal of XML is to separate the data from presentation. Unlike HTML documents, XML documents contain no information about how those documnets will appear when displayed. The XSL-FO specification provides a standardized way to build stylesheets that express document formatting in pure XML notation.






Rating: - XSL Formatting Objects Developer's Handbook
I have just started working with XSLT and XSL-FO. This is an excellent book that explains all of this stuff in a language that you can understand. I would definitely recommend this book if you are new at this stuff.

It also has an excellent appendixes with the listing of all of the objects and properties.

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Rating: - Good introduction to XSL-FO concepts
Before I jump into an overview of the book, I wanted to make a quick observation first. I personally can't understand why XSL-FO hasn't caught on as fast as XSLT, XML and its ultra popular variant HTML. XSL-FO is the third spec of the original big three specs provided by the W3C and it was supposed to provide a markup language suited specifically to printing documents. XSL-FO is to the printed page what HTML is to the browser.

This is one of three books currently available on the XSL-FO topic, and I am shocked at the lack of availability of good books on the topic. This is the first book I read on XSL-FO and I have to say it does a good job of introducing the language and it's concepts. It is a semi good reference book. However, the code samples I think are just horrible. There is not a single examples where you have simple straight XSL-FO. All code examples are FO interlined with XSLT, making the syntax confusing and almost unreadable. You have to sift through 2 pages of ... Read More

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Rating: - Good code but good formatters are hard to find
I rated the book 4 stars because it provides solid examples in many areas of XSL FO that actually work. Even though the W3C recommendation has been out since October, 2001, we have just started to see accessible books on XSL FO, and this is the best. The author provides a hands-on view and gives you examples that work and get you up and going quickly. Not a lot of wading through esoterica wondering how you would even get started with a simple document.

However, that is not to say that the book is without problems. Let me list them in order:

1. Software that will format XSL FO is in its infancy. Therefore, although the examples work, you have to burn some shoe leather finding software that is compliant with the spec. It would have been better if the author had bundled an evaluation copy of either the Antenna House software which he claimed would format *almost* all of the examples or his own XFC software that he developed for IBM alphaworks. I did download the XFC software, ... Read More

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