Ad Emmen
Genias Benelux
James Stewartstraat 24
NL-1325 JN Almere
The Netherlands

emmen@genias.nl
http://www.genias.nl/

May 2001
Almere

• XML separates contents from formatting
• An XML-tag like <b> does not mean anything by itself
• For instance Bold, Big, Brown, Bubble
• You need a formatting instruction to tell how it should be formatted
• That is where stylesheets come in

• Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)
• Same as for HTML
• Tell how each element should be displayed
• Useful for computer displays
• Extensible Stylesheet Language (XSL)
• More powerful
• Also for printing and other display units
• Detailed control over lay-out
• Elements can be rearranged - transformed - before display

• CSS is written in its own non-XML language
• For each XML-element a set of rules is defined
• Consists of properties wiht associated values
• For all elements "slides" the property "display" is set to "block" i.e. a standard paragraph style
• For all elements "slides" the property "font-family" is set to "Times"

• The properties hold for all the elements and all the contents
• Hence it cascades down
• When you define the styles for a contained element tan those are taken from then on
• Properties not redefined are still taken from the container element
• Comments not XML style but:

• With xml-stylesheet processing intruction:

      


]]>

• The "href" must point to the stylesheet file
• Must be a URL.
• Can be relative or a full "http://" address

• "Block" is used for standard paragraphs
• "None" is used for no display
• "List-item" is used within lists

• "Font-family" choose a general available font like "Helvetica" or "Times" or a generic one: "sans-serif, serif, monospace"
• "Font-size" with unit; pt, px, cm, or mm
• "Font-style" for making text Italic