XML and Java™ from scratch

Formatting Objects

Now that we've looked at one of the more powerful ways to use XML for data transfer, let's look at one of the more powerful ways to use it for presentation.

We've done a lot of work through the course of the book in XSL Transformations. Now it's time for us to look at XSL Formatting Objects. We're going to use them to create a PDF file that could be used to precisely control how our site looks in the browser, or even to print a paper catalog.

Downloading, Installing, and Testing FOP

The software that we're going to use for this is a program called FOP, available, like the other packages we've been using, from the Apache project. The home page for the product is at

http://xml.apache.org/fop

and it can be downloaded at

http://xml.apache.org/dist/fop/ ...