Creating Block-level Content: fo:block

You use blocks in XSL just as we did in CSSto create a rectangular display area set off from other display areas in a document. You use the fo:block formatting object for formatting such items as paragraphs, titles, headlines, figure and table captions, and so on. Here's an example from the beginning of the chapter:

 <fo:block font-family="sans-serif" line-height="48pt" font-size="36pt">      Welcome to XSL formatting. </fo:block>

You can use these properties with fo:block :

Common accessibility properties: source-document , role
Common aural properties: azimuth , cue-after , cue-before , elevation , pause-after , pause-before , pitch , pitch-range , play-during , richness , speak , speak-header , speak-numeral , speak-punctuation , speech-rate , stress , voice-family , volume
Common border, padding, and background properties: background-attachment , background- color , background-image , background-repeat , background-position-horizontal , background-position-vertical , border-before-color , border-before-style , border-before-width , border-after-color , border-after-style , border-after-width , border-start-color , border-start-style , border-start-width , border-end-color , border-end-style , border-end-width , border-top-color , border-top-style , border-top-width , border-bottom-color , border-bottom-style , border-bottom-width , border-left-color , border-left-style , border-left-width , border-right-color , border-right-style , border-right-width , padding-before , padding-after , padding-start , padding-end , padding-top , padding-bottom , padding-left , padding-right
Common font properties: font-family , font-size , font-stretch , font-size-adjust , font-style , font-variant , font-weight
Common hyphenation properties: country , language , script , hyphenate , hyphenation-character , hyphenation-push-character-count , hyphenation- remain -character-count
Common margin properties for blocks: margin-top , margin-bottom , margin-left , margin-right , space-before , space-after , start-indent , end-indent
break-after
break-before
color
font-height-override-after
font-height-override-before
hyphenation-keep
hyphenation-ladder-count
id
keep-together
keep-with- next
keep-with-previous
last-line-end-indent
linefeed -treatment
line-height
line-height-shift-adjustment
line-stacking-strategy
orphans
relative-position
space-treatment
span
text-align
text-align-last
text-indent
visibility
white-space -collapse
widows
wrap-option
z-index

Note that the data in ch14_01.xml is broken up into various child elements of a <PLANET> element, such as < NAME > , <MASS> , and so on, like this:

 <PLANET COLOR="RED">      <NAME>Mercury</NAME>     <MASS UNITS="(Earth = 1)">.0553</MASS>     <DAY UNITS="days">58.65</DAY>     <RADIUS UNITS="miles">1516</RADIUS>     <DENSITY UNITS="(Earth = 1)">.983</DENSITY>     <DISTANCE UNITS="million miles">43.4</DISTANCE><!--At perihelion-->   </PLANET>

In this example, I'll give the data in each of the children of a <PLANET> element its own block in the formatted document. To do that, I add a rule to ch14_02.xsl for each of those children, specifying the font to use for each block:

 <?xml version='1.0'?>  <xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"     xmlns:fo="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Format"     version='1.0'>     <xsl:template match="PLANETS">         <fo:root>             <fo:layout-master-set>                  <fo:simple-page-master master-name="page"                      page-height="400mm" page-width="300mm"                      margin-top="10mm" margin-bottom="10mm"                      margin-left="20mm" margin-right="20mm">                      <fo:region-body                        margin-top="0mm" margin-bottom="10mm"                        margin-left="0mm" margin-right="0mm"/>                      <fo:region-after extent="10mm"/>                  </fo:simple-page-master>              </fo:layout-master-set>              <fo:page-sequence master-reference="page">                  <fo:flow flow-name="xsl-region-body">                      <xsl:apply-templates/>                  </fo:flow>              </fo:page-sequence>         </fo:root>     </xsl:template>  <xsl:template match="PLANET/NAME">   <fo:block font-weight="bold" font-size="36pt"   line-height="48pt" font-family="sans-serif">   Name:   <xsl:apply-templates/>   </fo:block>   </xsl:template>   <xsl:template match="PLANET/MASS">   <fo:block font-size="36pt" line-height="48pt"   font-family="sans-serif">   Mass (Earth = 1):   <xsl:apply-templates/>   </fo:block>   </xsl:template>   <xsl:template match="PLANET/DAY">   <fo:block font-size="36pt" line-height="48pt" font-family="sans-serif">   Day (Earth = 1):   <xsl:apply-templates/>   </fo:block>   </xsl:template>   <xsl:template match="PLANET/RADIUS">   <fo:block font-size="36pt" line-height="48pt" font-family="sans-serif">   Radius (in miles):   <xsl:apply-templates/>   </fo:block>   </xsl:template>   <xsl:template match="PLANET/DENSITY">   <fo:block font-size="36pt" line-height="48pt" font-family="sans-serif">   Density (Earth = 1):   <xsl:apply-templates/>   </fo:block>   </xsl:template>   <xsl:template match="PLANET/DISTANCE">   <fo:block font-size="36pt" line-height="48pt" font-family="sans-serif">   Distance (million miles):   <xsl:apply-templates/>   </fo:block>   </xsl:template>  </xsl:stylesheet>

Now we've handled all the elements in ch14_01.xml, so that completes ch14_02.xsl. You can see the results in Figure 14-1. Congratulations, you've completed your first transformation to XSL formatting objects!