|
Definitive XSL-FO
 |
Author: G. Ken Holman
List Price: $49.99
Our Price: Click to see the latest and low price
ISBN: 0131403745
Publisher: Prentice Hall PTR (March, 2003)
Edition: Paperback
Sales Rank: 37,278
Average Customer Rating: 4.25 out of 5
|
Customer ReviewsRating: 4 out of 5
A safe bet
Definitive XSL-FO is definitely definitive. It's not a huge tome, but does a good job packing a huge specification into less than 500 pages still retaining readability. Rendering documents is something very few developers ever master, I believe. If you're one of those who are disciplined enough to actually learn XSL-FO, this book is a safe bet.After giving a thorough introduction to the history and related specifications, as well as the fundamental concepts of the subject area, mister Holman switches from "prose" to "reference" mode. Most of the book is all about introducing individual subjects in a concise way along with the element descriptions. Lists, tables, floats, footnotes, and so on. I have to give credit to the author for managing to come up with a granularity for these chapters that doesn't feel too overwhelming to grasp. For a technical reference, a good index is something not to haggle about. Obviously the true level of usefulness can only be conceived via practical use, and without an ongoing project actually using XSL-FO, I must resort to a gut feeling, which is a good one. Also, the layout and typesetting is visually very functional which is yet another key requirement for a reference type of book. To me, Definitive XSL-FO strikes as being simply a valuable reference. Far more approachable than the W3C document itself, and manages to teach the subject in layman's terms. A complex subject made simple.
Rating: 5 out of 5
Read the book... great for understanding the model
As the second thing I read on FO, this book is great. The first being the spec itself, which is a pain in the neck to understand.Definitive XSL-FO helped me understand the goals of the FO model and the details of the model itself. Great as a first step towards implementation. Getting through the 400 odd pages took about a week.
Rating: 4 out of 5
The complete explanation of XSL-FO
The book covers all the topics mentioned in W3C XSL 1.0 Recommentation. I found other books only covers part of it. But I found the book like to present topics in point form, some readers may not like this style. Also, it separated the description of formatting properties from formatting object like the W3C XSL 1.0 Recommentation, I think this approach is not so helpful because readers cannot thoroughly read each formatting object and related things in one place until he reached the appendix.
Similar Products
· Definitive XSLT and XPath
· XSL Formatting Objects Developer's Handbook
· XSLT Cookbook
· XSLT : Programmer's Reference
· XSL FO
|
