XSL-FO output reference for designing templates

Review this information to learn more about generating XSL-FO documents with Rational® Publishing Engine.

Purpose

To output the template into a .xsl document.

Supported content viewers

For a list of products that are supported for viewing this output type:
  1. Open the System Requirements for Rational Publishing Engine.
  2. In the By type section, click Software.
  3. Scroll to the Content viewers section. Product names and versions that are supported for viewing Rational Publishing Engine output are listed.

Template elements

Table 1. Template elements available to use for the XSL-FO output format
Element Description Can contain other elements Can contain content values and expressions

Paragraph icon Paragraph

Use to group a section of elements. Adds a carriage return around its child elements in the output.

Yes

No

Container icon Container

Use to group a section of elements. Cannot be styled and does not affect the formatting of the output.

When used inside other elements, the child elements available to use within the container might be limited. For example:
  • Inside rows, containers can host cells only
  • Inside lists, containers can host list-detail elements only

Yes

No

Text icon Text

The content renders with the same, specified formatting.

No

Yes

Styled text icon Styled text

A block of text that can have unique formatting on individual words. Use bold, italic, underline, strikeout, or color formatting on a selection of words within the element. The text is static.

No

Yes

Hyperlink icon Hyperlink

Creates a hyperlink in the output. The hyperlink can point to a location inside the document or to an external location.

No

Yes

Image icon Image

Displays a .gif, .png, .jpg, emf, or wmf image in the output. The report designer can specify the image path in the template or the report generator can specify the path at run time.

No

Yes

Table icon Table

Creates a table in the output. A table can contain rows or container elements.

Yes

No

Row icon Row

Creates a row in the current table.

Yes

No

Cell icon Cell

Creates a cell in the current row of the current table.

Yes

No

List icon List

Creates a bulleted or numeric list in the output.

Yes

No

List item icon List detail

Creates a list item in the current list in the output.

Yes

No

Data Source configuration icon Data source configuration

See Adding a data source configuration element.

No

No

Include file icon Include file

Includes the specified file in the output as an INCLUDETEXT field.

  • Included file can have a .doc, .docx, .txt, or .rtf extension.
  • For Microsoft Word output, you must update all fields with the macro to see the included file.
  • For Legacy PDF, HTML, and XSL-FO output, the included file is a hyperlink to the document.

No

Yes

Footnote icon Footnote

Creates a footnote in the current output page. The text of the footnote is the content of the footnote element. Supported for Microsoft Word output only.

No

Yes

Bookmark icon Bookmark

Defines a bookmark in the document. The name of the generated bookmark is the content for the bookmark. When generating the documents, Rational Publishing Engine generates a unique name for each bookmark. The name is based on the name provided at design time and a unique identifier generated at run time.

No

Yes

Comment icon Comment

Adds a comment to the output. The form and shape of the output comment is specific to the output format.

Supported for Microsoft Word and PDF.

No

Yes

Page Break icon Page Break

Adds a page break to the output.

No

No

Section Break icon Section Break

Adds a section break to the output.

No

No

Table of Contents icon Table of Contents

Adds a table of contents to the output.

No

No

Table of Tables icon Table of Tables

Adds a table of tables to the output. You must add Table Captions in your document template to generate a table of tables in the output.

Supported for Microsoft Word output only.

You must update all fields in the Microsoft Word document to see and be able to update the value of the field.

No

No

Table of Tables icon Table of Tables

Adds a table of tables to the output. You must add Table Captions in your document template to generate a table of tables in the output.

Supported for Microsoft Word output only.

You must update all fields in the Microsoft Word document to see and be able to update the value of the field.

No

No

Field icon Field

Adds a generic Microsoft Word field element. You can type any valid Microsoft Word code in the field code property.

Supported for Microsoft Word output only.

You must update all fields in the Microsoft Word document to see and be able to update the value of the field.

No

No

Page Number icon Page Number

Adds a page number in the output. Supported in Microsoft Word and PDF output only.

No

No

Total Pages Number icon Total Pages Number

Adds the total number of pages in the output. Supported for Microsoft Word and PDF output only.

No

No

Table Caption icon Table Caption

Adds a table caption. While you cannot specify dynamic content into a table caption, any subsequent text element is concatenated to it.

Supported for Microsoft Word and PDF outputs.

You must update all fields in the Microsoft Word document to see and be able to update the value of the field.

No

Yes

Figure Caption icon Figure Caption

Adds a figure caption. While you cannot specify dynamic content in a figure caption, any subsequent text element is concatenated to it.

Supported for Microsoft Word and PDF outputs.

You must update all fields in the Microsoft Word document to see and be able to update the value of the field.

No

Yes

Element properties

Review these notes to understand more about specifying the element properties in templates that are designed to generate XSL-FO documents.
Table 2. Image properties
Image properties Notes
Content Supported file types: .bmp, .emf, .gif, .jpg, .png, .svg, .tif, .wmf

Include file element

You can choose to link the file or physically embed the file into your output document. However, the way that include file elements are handled depends on the output format and the location from which you are retrieving the file. For Legacy PDF, HTML, and XSL-FO outputs, the included file is always a hyperlink.

Heading styles

The XSL-FO output format does not have heading styles; however, Rational Publishing Engine uses internally defined heading styles.

OLE objects

You can extract embedded objects, such as Object linking and embedding (OLE objects), from attributes in a data source. OLE objects are always rendered as images in XSL-FO output though, because the format does not support OLE objects.

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