XSL-FO 2.0

Abstract

The W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) is in the process of developing the second major version of XSL-FO (eXtensible Stylesheet Language - Formatting Objects) [1], the formatting specification component of XSL. XSL-FO is widely deployed in industry and academia where multiple output forms (typically print and online) are needed from single source XML. It is used in many diverse applications and countries on a large number of implementations to create technical documentation, reports and contracts, terms and conditions, invoices and other forms processing, such as driver's licenses, postal forms, etc. XSL-FO is also widely used for heavy multilingual work because of the internationalization aspects provided in 1.0 to accommodate multiple and mixed writing modes (writing directions such as left-to-right, top-to-bottom, right-to-left, etc.) of the world's languages. The primary goals of the W3C XSL Working Group in developing XSL 2.0 are to provide more sophisticated formatting and layout, enhanced internationalization to provide special formatting objects for Japanese and other Asian and non-Western languages and scripts and to improve integration with other technologies such as SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) [2] and MathML (Mathematical Markup Language) [3]. A number of XSL 1.0 implementations already support dynamic inclusion of vector graphics using W3C SVG. The XSL and SVG WGs want to define a tighter interface between XSL-FO and SVG to provide enhanced functionality. Experiments [4] with the use of SVG paths to create non-rectangular text regions, or run-arounds, have helped to motivate further work on deeper integration of SVG graphics inside XSL-FO documents, and to work with the SVG WG on specifying the meaning of XSL-FO markup inside SVG graphics. A similar level of integration with MathML is contemplated.