Page Layout

G Ken Holman

The latter ... you can create the bunch of page masters that you need, and then in your XSLT where you create the result <page-sequence> you could use an attribute value template to determine from passed parameters which sequence you would want:

   <xsl:param name="page-type" select="'A4'"/>
   ...
   <simple-page-master master-name="pages-A4" .../>
   <simple-page-master master-name="pages-A3" .../>
   <simple-page-master master-name="pages-Letter" .../>
   ...
   <page-sequence master-reference="pages-{$page-type}">
   ...

... and pass the required print format as a command-line argument.

>If this is possible how would we then set our widths on the table-column 
>column-width settings?

I suggest you use proportional widths that react to the width of the page:

   <table-column column-width="proportional-column-width(...some
value...)"/>
   ...
   <table-column column-width="proportional-column-width(...other
value...)"/>

This will give you proportionally the same in all results.

Ken Holman

By creating a page sequence stating that you need a particular page geometry as the second page of the sequence, as in this example:

   <page-sequence-master master-name="frame-pages">
     <single-page-master-reference master-reference="frame"/>
     <single-page-master-reference master-reference="frame-static"/>
     <repeatable-page-master-reference master-reference="frame"/>
   </page-sequence-master>

The body of the simple-page-master named (in this example) "frame-static" would be assigned the content you always want to show up only on the second page.

Ken Holman

I'm assuming you only mean the bottom of the last page and not the bottom of every page.

Use an empty block at the end of your flow with a footnote construct with an empty inline for the footnote citation and the text that you want at the bottom of the page as the footnote-body.

This was my proposed solution for a disclaimer at the end of the body of some text:

Remember that XSL-FO is a layout language and if there is a layout construct giving you what you want, then ignore what the name of the construct is and use it to do what you need.

David Tolpin expands

It would be really nice if it were so. It is not, unfortunately. XSL FO is a mix of lower-level layout elements, presentation elements which have more or less fixed layout role, as well as of higher-level elements describing a document's structure.

While your advice is absolutely right for tables or lists -- data put in tables is not necessary tabular data -- it is less safe to use footnotes for positioning signatures and disclaimers, unless the signatures and disclaimers ARE footnotes indeed.

An alternative approach would be to omit the notion of footnote completely and introduce 'bottom-floats' along with 'top-' and 'side-' floats. Since currently XSL FO is a compromise between a layout assembler and a document structure description language, points where the language uses semantically loaded constructs should be regarded and the constructs used according to their intended roles and meanings.

table-caption, footnote, title are structural elements. They should be used in accordance with their meaning; a somewhat exaggerated example of importance of such use is a speech-based XSL FO browser; it would interpret this elements according to their intended roles and would be confused. While an XSL FO reader is mostly a theoretical issue, an XSL FO browser for PDAs or other special devices may interpret these constructs in a semantically reasonable but rather unexpected way.

Besides that, use of footnote as a bottom-float breaks extensibility and forward-compatibility: unexpected effects can eventually be discovered when bottom-floats are indeed included in the language.

If you had meant the bottom of every page, check the use of static-content for a footer.

David Tolpin offers

Isn't specifying a different page-master for the last page and static content just for that page a better solution?

Ken Holman

Yes ... set your page margins to zero and your body margins to whatever you need. The region-before lives between the page margins, so it will extend to the page limits.

No .. regions cannot have margins ... looking at 6.4.15 I don't see the availability of margin specifications. Note that even though padding and border-width properties are listed indirectly through a common property set, these must be 0pt, which means this technique is not available to you.

To get the effect you want, you will need to squeeze in the sides of the region-after by using extents on region-start and region-end ... then, to go beyond these sides in region-before, you need to change the precedence from the default of "false" to "true".

The example below gives you what you need, based on the requirements you have described so far, when using Antenna House. If there are more requirements, then I can't say if this will suffice or not.

The following example gives me what you are asking for.

<root font-family="Times" font-size="20pt"
       xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Format">

<layout-master-set>
   <simple-page-master master-name="frame"
                       page-height="297mm" page-width="210mm">
     <region-body region-name="frame-body"
                  margin-top="15mm" margin-bottom="15mm"
                  margin-left="15mm" margin-right="15mm"/>
     <region-before region-name="frame-before" extent="15mm"
                    precedence="true"/>
     <region-after region-name="frame-after" extent="15mm"/>
     <region-start region-name="frame-start" extent="15mm"/>
     <region-end region-name="frame-end" extent="15mm"/>
   </simple-page-master>
</layout-master-set>

<page-sequence master-reference="frame">

<static-content flow-name="frame-before">
   <block text-align="end">
     <external-graphic src="smflags.bmp"/>
   </block>
</static-content>
<static-content flow-name="frame-after">
   <block text-align="end">
     <external-graphic src="smflags.bmp"/>
   </block>
</static-content>
<flow flow-name="frame-body">

   <block border="solid 1px">This is a test
   <footnote>
     <inline/>
     <footnote-body>
       <block text-align="end" border="solid 1px">
         End of body region
       </block>
     </footnote-body>
   </footnote>
  </block>

</flow>
</page-sequence>
</root>

Nikolai Grigoriev

Just a suggestion: you can take the master for the first page out of the first fo:repeatable-page-master-alternatives, like this:

<page-sequence-master master-name="pages">

   <!-- Sequence for single-page documents -->
   <repeatable-page-master-alternatives maximum-repeats="1">
        <conditional-page-master-reference page-position="last"
            master-reference="the-only-page"/>
    </repeatable-page-master-alternatives>

   <!-- Sequence for multi-page documents -->
     <repeatable-page-master-alternatives>
       <conditional-page-master-reference page-position="first"
           master-reference="first-page-out-of-many"/>
       <conditional-page-master-reference page-position="last"
           master-reference="last-page-out-of-many"/>
       <conditional-page-master-reference
           master-reference="page-that-is-neither-first-nor-last"/>
     </repeatable-page-master-alternatives>

</page-sequence-master>

The first subsequence will match if and only if there is exactly one page in the sequence. If there are two pages or more, the processing finds no suitable page-masters in the first subsequence, and moves to the second subsequence, skipping the first one.

This is equivalent to your solution, but has a benefit of better logical separation between masters applicable to single-page sequences, and those applicable to multi-page ones.

Paul Grosso

initial-page-number is a basic property that all implementations must support whereas force-page-count is an extended property.

Also, use of initial-page-number="auto-odd" on the initial page that is supposed to be odd (recto) is much more intuitive and better practice than trying to make chapters start on recto pages by trying to make whatever page-sequence might precede a chapter end on an even page.

Ken Holman

The XSL-FO for this is display-align="center" and you can place this on your body region and every page's content is centred in the region.

Eliot Kimber

The XSL spec is very clear that the page regions always have an effective border width of zero. Note that both XEP and XSL Formatter 2.x (and probably 3.x, I haven't tested it) ignore this rule and will put borders on page regions. Don't know about FOP.

In general I find it easiest to not use page margins at all. It's important to remember that the page margins cannot have any marks--that is, they essentially define an unprintable area within the physical page.

It's generally easier to do everything with the page regions. For example, to generate registration marks around a 6x9-type page, I define the physical page as 8.5x11 (or A4 or whatever) and then use margins on the page regions to create an effect 6x9 printed page. I can then use one or more of the edge regions to hold the registration marks (which can be created using external graphics or inline SVG or EPS [XSL Formatter supports inline EPS graphics].

The only legal way to get a border on a page region is to use a block or block container. Using a block-container within static should work, but there may be some issues with z-index depending on how the FO implementation stacks things, but generally I would expect the static content to be rendered under the flowed content (but I don't know that this expectation is supported by or required by the FO spec).

J.Pietschmann

The pagination is done after the transformation, in an independent step. Therefore there is no way to get hold of the number of prescriptions laid out on a certain page in the transformation.

The layout process itself lacks higher level functionality like counting, so no easy solution here either.

You can try a variety of tricks:

Alexander Peshkov

The most probable reason of this problem is that you have every chapter in separate page-sequence with 'initial-page-number' property set on it. Normally, previous page-sequence will generate empty page so that to maintain correct parity order (odd-even-odd-...) of the document pages. This effect is caused by the default value of 'force-page-count' property that is 'auto'. If you set force-page-count="no-force" on every page-sequence those auto-generated pages will gone.

Another possible cause of 'unexpected' blank pages is use of empty blocks of this sort: <fo:block><fo:leader/></fo:block> to create '<br> effect'. If one of these blocks appears at the end of the flow it may became the only content of the page and thus generate 'blank' page.

W. Eliot Kimber

You've defined a page sequence master that will *accomodate* a blank page, not one that will force one.

That is, conditional-page-master-reference is used to associate page masters with particular types of pages: blank or not blank, odd or even, first or not first, last or not last.

To force a blank page, simply use an empty fo:block with a break-after="page" property--this will generate a blank page. You can then use the page master as you've defined it to define the characteristics of that blank page. E.g.:

<fo:block break-after="page">
  <fo:leader leader-pattern="space" leader-length="0pt"/> </fo:block>

[This use of fo:leader is the most reliable way to ensure the block is actually processed as some processors will ignore blocks with no non-blank content. If you need an empty block that takes no vertical space, set the line-height to "0pt" for the block.]

Ken Holman

Yes, this has caught me in the past as well.

The reason the 4th one is being printed as blank is that the spec says that force-page-count="auto" (which is the default) requires that a given page sequence end on an even page if the first page number of the following page-sequence is odd. As it is with your situation.

The way around it is to have force-page-count="no-force" on all of your page sequences, then they won't extend to an even page number when the subsequent one starts with an odd page number.

Eliot Kimber

When absolute=absolute, the block-container is positioned relative to its nearest ancestor reference area. For a block container that has no ancestor block containers, its nearest reference area will be the area for the page region that contains it (e.g., region-body, region-before, etc.).

When absolute=fixed, the block-container is positioned relative to the edges of the page (including any page margins, if specified).

Older versions of XEP only supported absolute=fixed. I believe that 4.x supports absolute=absolute as well as fixed.

G. Ken Holman

To print on only ever other page, create a page sequence alternating between a page geometry with a flow (that accepts your content) and a page geometry without a flow (so that only static content is drawn). The formatter will render the page with only static content and then go to the "next" page geometry that will have your flow.

I've done this to create "Notes" pages by using static content of multiple horizontal rules with which to make lines for someone making notes. The formatter renders the page and then just continues the flow on the next.

It is not possible in XSL-FO to exclude page numbers from the page sequence.

Since your verso pages are blank and do not have any static content, and you don't want them included in your page count, I suggest that you render all of your pages in order without blanks and you use another tool with which to insert the blank pages. The free iText tool itext.sf.net is what I use to manipulate PDF pages that I create from XSL-FO engines. Since I don't know Java I use Python and Jython to call the PDF library and I create new PDF files with desired features using PDF files created by XSL-FO engines as inputs.

Eliot Kimber

If you specify initial-page-number="auto-even" on the fo:page-sequence element then the page sequence will start on an even (left) page.

Note that a (left-to-right) book cannot physically start on an even page--the first physical page will always be a right-hand page. So if the first page with content is even, you will need to generate a blank first page.

Mauritz Jeanson |Ryan Lubben

XEP and AntennaHouse XSL Formatter have extensions for this: RenderX and Antenna House

or If you aren't using XSL-Formatter or XEP you could create crop marks using a background image.

<fo:simple-page-master master-name="Front_Cover" page-height="11.5in"
page-width="9.0in">
    <fo:region-body background-image="Crop_Marks.svg"/>
</fo:simple-page-master>

Another possibility would be to embed the SVG code for your crop marks directly in the stylesheet.

<fo:simple-page-master master-name="Front_Cover" page-height="11.5in"
page-width="9.0in">
    <fo:region-body/>
    <fo:region-start display-align="before" region-name="Crop_Marks"/>
</fo:simple-page-master>
<fo:static-content flow-name="Crop_Marks">
    <fo:block-container z-index="-222" position="absolute">
        <fo:block text-align="left">
            <fo:instream-foreign-object content-width="9.0in">
                <!--Add SVG Code-->
            </fo:instream-foreign-object>
        </fo:block>
    </fo:block-container>
</fo:static-content>

Ken Holman

I can see an object combination and a property combination:

>For example, in left-to-right writing mode, I can use margin-left
>in nested fo:block elements:
>
><fo:block margin-left="1in">First block.
>  <fo:block margin-left="1in">Second block.
>    <fo:block margin-left="1in">Third block.
>    </fo:block>
>  </fo:block>
></fo:block>
>
>The third block will be indented 3in from the left region boundary.
>
>But "margin-left" is an absolute property.  If I use this stylesheet
>for a language in writing mode right-to-left, this does not have
>the intended effect.  At first I thought that
>space-start would be the corresponding property that is relative
>to the writing-mode.  But space-start only applies to inline areas,
>not block areas.

But they are relative to the reference area, so you could introduce a reference area in each block by a block-container.

>There doesn't seem to be a "margin-start" property, and start-indent
>does not produce the same additive effect.  Is there any way to
>accomplish this nesting of indents without having to resort to
>using nested list-blocks or computing a sum for a start-indent?

Remember that you can express the sum without computing the sum and let the FO processor do the computation for you ... will that help?

So, my two suggestions are nested block-containers and arithmetic expression.

Examples below.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="US-ASCII"?><!--raw.fo-->
<root xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Format";
      font-family="Times" font-size="20pt">

  <layout-master-set>
    <simple-page-master master-name="frame"
                        page-height="297mm" page-width="210mm"
                        margin-top="15mm" margin-bottom="15mm"
                        margin-left="15mm" margin-right="15mm">
      <region-body region-name="frame-body"/>
    </simple-page-master>
  </layout-master-set>

  <page-sequence master-reference="frame">
    <flow flow-name="frame-body" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Format";>
      <block>This is a test with margin-left</block>
<block margin-left="1in">First block.
 <block margin-left="1in">Second block.
   <block margin-left="1in">Third block.
   </block>
 </block>
</block>

      <block>This is a test with start-indent</block>
<block start-indent="1in">First block.
 <block start-indent="1in">Second block.
   <block start-indent="1in">Third block.
   </block>
 </block>
</block>

      <block>This is a test with arithmetic expressions</block>
<block start-indent="1in">First block.
 <block start-indent="1in+1in">Second block.
   <block start-indent="1in+1in+1in">Third block.
   </block>
 </block>
</block>

      <block>This is a test with block containers</block>
<block start-indent="1in">First block.
 <block-container>
   <block start-indent="1in">Second block.
     <block-container>
       <block start-indent="1in">Third block.
       </block>
     </block-container>
   </block>
 </block-container>
</block>

    </flow>
  </page-sequence>
</root>

J.Pietschmann

The common workaround is to use markers. Define a marker with the "continued...." text at the beginning of the block you want to have marked as such, redefine it as empty at the end (or at the beginning of the next block, whatever fits your requirement), and retrieve the marker class in the footer. The drawback is that the "continued..." text is not part of the flow, resulting whitespace above the footer or different footer layouts, but people rarely notice.

Bob Stayton et al

One method you could try is to put the fo:block containing the content into a fo:table with a single fo:row. That row should have height="100%" and display-align="after" attributes. That should make the row as tall as the page body area, and push the block to the bottom.

Francois Badier offers:

I needed the same thing once and wanted to avoid the table layout. Here is a block-container method ; works nicely with XEP.

%lt;fo:block-container 
	  display-align="after" 
	  block-progression-dimension="100%">
 %lt;fo:block>legal notice%lt;/fo:block>
%lt;/fo:block-container>

Ken Holman

By not producing the page sequence.

Perhaps you have:

 <page-sequence master-reference="">
   <flow flow-name="">
     <xsl:if test="condition">
       ....

If so, you need to do this:

 <xsl:if test="condition">
   <page-sequence master-reference="">
     <flow flow-name="">
       ....