XSL-FO Area Properties

XSL-FO using a rectangular box (area) to display output.

XSL-FO region

XSL formatting model defines a series of rectangular area (block) to display output.

All output (text, pictures, etc.) will be formatted into the box, and then will be displayed or printed to a target media.

Let's look at the following areas:

• Pages (page)
• Regions (area)
• Block areas (block area)
• Line areas (line area)
• Inline areas (regional lines)

XSL-FO Pages (page)

XSL-FO output is formatted to the page. Printout usually divided into a number of pages. Regular browser output would be a long page.

XSL-FO Pages (page) contains a region (Region).

XSL-FO Regions (area)

Each XSL-FO page contains a series of Regions (district):

• region-body (body of the page)
• region-before (the header of the page)
• region-after (the footer of the page)
• region-start (left column)
• region-end (right column)

XSL-FO Regions (district) area contains the block (Block Area).

XSL-FO Block Areas (block area)

XSL-FO Block Areas (block area) defines a small block elements (typically starting from a new line), such as paragraphs, tables and lists.

XSL-FO Block Areas (block area) contain other block areas, but most of the time they contain line region (Line Area).

XSL-FO Line Areas (line area)

XSL-FO Line Areas (line regions) within the region defined block of text.

XSL-FO Line Areas (line area) contains the line region (Inline Area).

XSL-FO Inline Areas (line area)

XSL-FO Inline Areas (inline area) defined lines inside the text (italics, single characters, images, etc.).