GeezerVison

In computing, the term Extensible Stylesheet Language (XSL) is used ambiguously to refer to the languages XSLT and XSL-FO which are used to transform and render XML documents (e.g., XSLT is used to determine how to display a XML document as a webpage^[1]).

1. XSL Transformation (XSLT): an XML language for transforming XML documents
2. XSL Formatting Objects (XSL-FO): an XML language for specifying the visual formatting of an XML document. It's an intermediary format which can be used when transforming from XML with XSLT to a print format like PDF. Using XSL-FO usually implies using XSLT too.

XSL began as an attempt to bring the functionality of DSSSL, particularly in the area of print and high-end typesetting, to XML.

In response to a submission from Arbortext, Inso, and Microsoft,^[2] a W3C working group on XSL started operating in December 1997, with Sharon Adler and Steve Zilles as co-chairs, with James Clark acting as editor (and unofficially as chief designer), and Chris Lilley as the W3C staff contact. The group released a first public Working Draft on 18 August 1998. XSLT became W3C Recommendations on 16 November 1999^[3]. XSL-FO reached Recommendation status in October 2001 but the specification was just called XSL despite only actually describing XSL-FO. However it claims XSL to consist of two parts and calls XSLT the other.^[4][5]

XSL-FO 1.1 came out in December 2006 and again the specification was called just XSL 1.1.^[6]

In January 2007 the XSLT 2.0 specifications released.^[7][8]. The XSL-FO 2.0 Working Draft never became a finalized standard.

• XSLT
• XSL Formatting Objects
• XPath

• "XSL language definition".
• "Extensible Stylesheet Language". Archived from the original on 2008-07-12. Retrieved 2003-11-28.
• Holman, G. Ken (2002-03-20). "What is XSL-FO". XML.com. O'Reilly Media, Inc. Retrieved 2008-09-01.

• tutorial and reference of XSLT and XSL-FO
• XML Focus Topics: CSS, XSL, XSL-FO Archived 2008-05-12 at the Wayback Machine
• IBM XSL Formatting Objects Composer Archived 2011-07-17 at the Wayback Machine