Re: (dsssl) DSSSL stylesheet for xsl fo

Subject: Re: (dsssl) DSSSL stylesheet for xsl fo
From: "Nick Ridout" <costempd@xxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 12:55:21 -0500

I also need to produce RTF from XML.  I considered trying to learn DOCBOOK
and DSSSL and try the Jade approach.  I also wanted to learn XSL FO.
Someone
sent me examples of what they had done with XSLT to generate RTF from XSL
FO,
but I think they also used COCOON and I was hesitant to add another tool to
the mix.  I had to do something quickly and I wasn't sure how I would
invoke
Jade from within my java servlet code, so I decided to stick with XSLT.
I have a fairly short list of things I need to generate, including various
levels
of headers (some numbered), paragraphs, ordered and unordered lists, simple
tables, running footer with page number, and a slightly more complex
"signature block" with two columns and a mix of fixed and proportional
fonts
with fixed and variable data.

I am now generating RTF that works in WORD 97 and WORDPRO 9.5.  I am
still enhancing it.  Basically, I have XML data that provides "boilerplate"
language for various subsections of the document.  This XML is read by the
java servlet and used to populate classes that correspond to the tags.
Changes
are then made according to user selections, and additionl language is
generated, or booleans are set to indicate various sections of language to
be added downstream.  The various sections are then merged at the java
class level,
and a new XML is generated that represents the variable content of the
document.  My first XSLT then merges this variable data with the basic
document shell producing another XML that represents the content view
of this instance of the document.  The next XSLT generates an XML file
that represents a formatted representation of the document.  I would have
liked this to be XSL FO or DOCBOOK XML, but never had time to learn either
of those. So I made up my own tags.  From these tags I can generate HTML
with one
XSLT stylesheet, and RTF with another XSLT stylesheet.  Unfortunately, it's
all a custom made solution for the type of legal documents I need to
generate.
Everytime I need to produce another "formatting feature" I need to reverse
engineer the RTF and hack away until I get what I want.

Documentation on RTF is hard (for me) to follow, and each word processor
has it's
own "flavor" of RTF that it understands and/or generates.  So it's been
mostly
trial and error.  In spite of these problems, I am having more success than
I expected.

Nick Ridout

>Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2001 15:26:12 +0100
>From: Linda van den Brink <lvdbrink@xxxxxxx>
>Subject: (dsssl) DSSSL stylesheet for xsl fo
>
>Hi all,
>
>Last week I was looking for a way to render my XML documents as RTF using
>XSL. But apparently, none of the existing XSL renderers can output RTF;
all
>they do is PDF. So then I thought of using DSSSL, because (Open)Jade does
>have an RTF backend. Then David Carlisle gave me the idea that it would be
>nice to create a DSSSL stylesheet for XSL FO files. I could have a
>stylesheet to create an XSL FO file from an XML document, then use this
XSL
>FO file to create PDF with FOP, and to create RTF, etc with Jade via this
>DSSSL stylesheet.
>
>First question: has anyone already done this?
>
>If not: my DSSSL knowledge is very rusty, but I think this is worth
trying.
>
>Linda van den Brink






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