Editorial Reviews:
XSL is an important piece of the XML puzzle and comprises two parts. The first--XSL Transformations (XSLT)--is responsible for transforming XML documents into other formats, including XML and HTML. The second part is XSL formatting objects (XSL-FO)--a language for applying styles to documents to prepare them for various output formats. XSL Essentials uses concrete examples to present the most important aspects of XSL. This book is best suited for accomplished Web developers looking to dive right into XSL. It uses B2B examples to give you enough sample templates to begin to develop your own. The majority of the text is devoted to XSLT--the more mature of the two pieces of XSL. You'll learn how to transform documents, sort and list content, apply conditional processing, use variables and parameters, and exploit the document() function to combine information from multiple documents into one. XSL-FO is quite a lengthy specification, but the coverage in this book is rather brief. The author focuses on the most important pieces such as defining the page regions, applying block formatting, and using tables and lists. A wrap-up chapter provides a review of XSL. The book has a companion Web site with all of the example code and links for downloading XSLT processors; the example code also comes on an included CD-ROM. XSL Essentials is far from an exhaustive examination of XSL but serves its purpose--to lay out the essential elements of this subject. --Stephen W. Plain Topics covered: Transformation and processors, outputting XML, outputting HTML and XHTML, XPath, sorting and numbering lists, conditional processing, variables and parameters, processing multiple documents, XPath functions and extensions, XSL-FO basics, XSL-FO tables and lists, XSL review.
By allowing us to style and reformat XML content, XSL (eXtensible Stylesheet Language) adds flexibility and power to the hugely popular XML. This one-of-a-kind resource gives developers all the information they need to understand and apply this highly effective Web tool. Using extensive samples and source code, XML expert Mike Fitzgerald walks readers through all facets of XSL, including transforming and formatting documents to an XML path language, numbered and sorted lists, conditional processing and loops, output methods, advanced formatting, and shorthand properties. Readers will get expert guidance on translating XML documents with XSLT (XSL Transformation) and formatting with XSLFO (XSL Formatting Objects). As part of the exciting new Wiley XML Essentials Series, this excellent resource features an appendix listing all XSL elements and XSLFO formatting objects and formatting properties, source code indexing, and more.
Customer Reviews:
 thoughtfully consistent and well presented
I might have been among the first hundreds people to own this book and I still have to use it; I even use it often now as XML-based applications are growing day by day. The book is an outstanding one when it comes to concision, to the fundamentals of XML/XSLT. The methOdology adopted is that of teaching by examples, going from simple examples progresssively through more complex examples that re-use the same simple examples but introduce new concepts that are to be explained within the new chapter. There is no comparable material in the litterature for the beginner and the intermediate learner of XSLT.
The physical weak point of the book is its bounding! The paste used to bind the book is wrong: a few pages were tore off from my book since the first week I started working with it; fortunately, I immediately get the book re-bounded by a professional. Otherwise, I might loose a few pages of a so excellent learning material: it used to be in my bookshelf for the last two years, but, since this year it is always on the top of my desk so that I thought I should write this review, my first at "Amazon.com".
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