ProductsStyleVisionXSL:FO for PDF

Altova StyleVision® 2008 includes the world's first visual XSL:FO designer to automate the writing of PDF documents through an intuitive, drag-and-drop user interface.

Presenting data from XML applications and relational databases in PDF format is a common requirement in report generation and document management systems. Writing intricate XSL:FO stylesheets for transforming XML and database content to PDF format becomes easy with the robust visual editing capabilities of StyleVision. In addition, that same design simultaneously produces an Authentic form, as well as HTML, RTF, and Word 2007 (OOXML) output and the associated stylesheets.

 Click here to download a fully functional, free 30-day trial of Altova StyleVision® 2008!

Visual PDF design

The unique StyleVision approach to stylesheet design makes creating presentation stylesheets easier and faster than ever before. The intuitive visual design process means you don’t need prior XSL:FO, XPath, or template coding experience to design stylesheets in StyleVision.

To begin creating a stylesheet, simply open an existing XML Schema, XML instance, DTD, or database in StyleVision, and the content model will appear in the Schema Sources entry helper. You can even connect to multiple XML and database schemas to incorporate data from multiple sources – such as an XML file and a database – in your design. When you select an element or attribute that you wish to see in your output and drag it from the Schema Sources window onto the design pane, StyleVision prompts you to specify how you would like the new node to be handled (for example, as a new paragraph, image, table, etc.). This information will be rendered dynamically based on the data in your source(s). You can also insert static content such as header text, images, hyperlinks, and so on.

To add layout and styling information to your design, the StyleVision interface provides five advanced entry helper windows for viewing, editing, and assigning the style and layout properties of each element in your design. Learn more about this functionality on the Stylesheet Design page.

Since PDF documents are paginated, they require specific styling considerations. StyleVision includes special formatting options for PDF documents, including cover page design options, page numbering, page count totals, headers and footers, margins, etc. These options are available in the Styles, Properties, and Design Tree entry helper windows.

CSS

StyleVision supports advanced styling functionality for building PDF pages, including support for CSS styles. You can add precise visual styling rules to your designs using built in CSS styles, and you can import your own CSS documents to leverage work you’ve already completed. Some CSS styles, such as those for combo-boxes and other HTML-specific components may not, by their nature, be applicable to paged media output. When such styles are used, a comment is displayed to indicate that a style may render a bit differently in your HTML and PDF output files. In these cases, the paged media will use a suitable print rendition of the effect.

StyleVision also allows you to specifiy output-dependent conditions for fine-tuning the output to different media when necessary, for instance to hyperlink text in HTML output but print the actual URL in the corresponding PDF file.

Advanced stylesheet functions

Stylesheets designed in StyleVision support advanced functionality such as conditional templates, auto-calculations, business logic validation, sorting data on output, and much more. Read more about advanced stylesheet functions.

True single source publishing

The StyleVision visual, drag-and-drop design approach allows you to create standards-conformant transformation stylesheets and rich PDF output in minutes – a process that can take hours when performed manually. As you’re creating your design, the resulting XSL:FO stylesheet is auto-generated along with the PDF output, both which can be viewed by clicking on the Preview PDF tab in the design window.

In addition to the XSL:FO stylesheet for PDF and the associated output, StyleVision also simultaneously generates HTML, RTF, and Word 2007 output, plus the associated stylesheets, and an Authentic form. These stylesheets and output files are all generated based on the single design you create, and you can save the standards-conformant stylesheets and output files separately at any time.

The ability to produce all these stylesheets and output formats based on a single design makes StyleVision® 2008 the perfect tool for publishing your XML and database data in multiple media formats quickly and easily. Download a free 30-day trial of StyleVision.