Language Concepts
The XSL-FO language was designed for paged media; as such, the concept of pages is an integral part of XSL-FO's structure.
FO works best for what could be called "content-driven" design. This is the standard method of layout for books, articles, legal documents, and so forth. It involves a single flowing span of fairly contiguous text, with various repeating information built into the margins of a page. This is as opposed to "layout-driven" design, which is used in newspapers or magazines. If content in those documents does not fit in the required space, some of it is trimmed away until it does fit. XSL-FO does not easily handle the tight restrictions of magazine layout; indeed, in many cases, it lacks the ability to express some forms of said layout.
Despite the basic nature of the language's design, it is capable of a great deal of expressiveness. Tables, lists, side floats, and a variety of other features are available. These features are comparable to CSS's layout features, though some of those features are expected to be built by the XSLT.
Read more about this topic: XSL Formatting Objects
Famous quotes containing the words language and/or concepts:
“Upon my tongues continual slanders ride,
The which in every language I pronounce,
Stuffing the ears of men with false reports.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“It is impossible to dissociate language from science or science from language, because every natural science always involves three things: the sequence of phenomena on which the science is based; the abstract concepts which call these phenomena to mind; and the words in which the concepts are expressed. To call forth a concept, a word is needed; to portray a phenomenon, a concept is needed. All three mirror one and the same reality.”
—Antoine Lavoisier (1743–1794)