1. Introduction

This document gives a quick, learn-by-example introduction to XSL Formatting Objects. I don't discuss subtle details of implementation, but rather provide a series of examples of how to perform routine tasks with IREn — an XSL formatter developed by RenderX, Inc. It is not a manual of XSL FO in general, and some examples given here may not work in other XSL FO formatters, or give different results.

This tutorial was conceived as a means to facilitate reading of XSL 1.0 Recommendation of October 15, 2001. The normative text is available from W3C site: http://www.w3.org/TR/2001/REC-xsl-20011015/. You should obtain a copy of XSL 1.0 Recommendation, and refer to it for a complete description of objects and properties mentioned here.

IREn 4.9 also implements several extensions to the XSL 1.0 Recommendation: they add support for useful functionality that cannot be expressed by standard XSL Formatting Objects. The last chapters of this document discuss available extensions in more detail. Needless to say, the extensions are proprietary and incompatible with other XSL formatters; please avoid their use whenever possible.

Readers who aren't IREn users can download an evaluation copy of IREn from http://shop.xattic.com, and run the proposed examples to see how the formatter works. This manual is also available in XML format with an associated XSL FO stylesheet; browsing its source code may also be interesting (and instructive).

IREn covers more of the spec than was needed for this manual. Please refer to IREn product documentation for a full list of supported elements and properties.