Extensible Stylesheet Language (XSL) Requirements Version 2.0

2.2.1.1 Column wide

Allow users to specify whether footnotes are column wide or page wide.

2.2.1.2 Multiple columns

Add support for multiple columns in the footnote region, where the number of columns may be different from the number of columns in the page.

2.2.1.3 Table footnotes

Add support for table footnotes. These are footnote bodies that get rendered within the table (as opposed to at the bottom of the page) when the footnote reference appears on the table fragment on that page.

2.2.1.4 Coalescing footnotes

Add support for coalescing footnotes. This means that the same footnote should only be shown once when it appears multiple times on the same page.

2.2.1.5 Restart numbering

Add support for restarting numbering footnotes for each page

2.2.1.6 Maximum size

Allow users to specify the maximum size of the footnote area in relation to the body and for footnotes to continue on the next page.

2.2.1.7 Other properties

Allow users to specify other properties of the footnotes, such as margins, spacing etc.

2.2.1.8 Properties from area tree

Add support for specifying properties such as the fontsize of footnotes to be taken from the area tree, instead of from the formatting object tree. This is related to 4 Inheritance .

2.2.2.1 Page wide and column wide floats

We should differentiate page wide, column wide or n -column wide floats.

2.2.2.2 Floats alignment

We have to be able to align floats to the top and bottom.

2.2.2.3 Stack floats

Be able to stack floats as well as to specify whether the order needs to be preserved, or whether the page wide floats come first, followed by the ones that span two columns, followed by the ones that span one column.

2.2.2.4 Distance of floats

We need be able to add floats from the previous page, specify how far they can float, whether they can float towards the front of the document, they may flow only within the same spread, etc...

2.2.3.1 Keep marginalia together with other objects

Keep marginalia together with other objects, such as blocks or inlines. We should specify the alignment of the marginalia, as this is typically a smaller font size. For example align the baselines, align the top of the two lines, etc. Support a variety of positions of marginalia, e.g. position them at the left on a left-hand page and at the right on a right-hand page.

The following graphic show an examples of marginalia:

The following picture shows collision of 2 marginalia:

This graphic shows marginalia on the two sides of the flow:

This graphic shows an example of the relative alignment of the marginalia and the text. At the top of the page, the first lines of the marginalia and the text are aligned at the before-edge. When in the middle of the page, the first line of the marginalia and the corresponding line of the text are visually aligned on a particular baseline (in the case of mixed text).

2.2.3.2 Large marginalia

If marginalia become larger than the space on the page, they should force the text and/or the related marginalia to move to the following page. Also permit breaking of marginalia.

This graphic is showing the situation where some breaking is preferable:

This graphic shows one solution, by breaking the flow so that the entire marginalia is brought to the next page, together with the text it belongs to:

This graphic shows another solution, by breaking the marginalia:

2.2.4.1 Feathering

Add support for feathering, to vertically adjust lines. Feathering is vertical justification with very small amounts.

2.2.4.2 Correlating vertical position

Add support for correlating vertical position so that lines of text on two adjacent pages, columns or regions are visually next to each other. Also support alignment of the two sides of the same sheet, so that the lines of text on the back side and front side of the sheet are aligned (this is a common requirement when the sheets of paper are very thin).

2.2.4.3 Vertical alignment within a page or column

Add support for vertical alignment, such as centering the content of the columns or aligning to the bottom within pages, regions or columns.

2.2.4.4 Vertical alignment specific for the last column

Allow users to do alignment for all columns, and alignment specific to the last column.

2.2.4.5 Vertical justification across pages and columns

Add support for adjusting properties to do vertical justification within a page, a region or a column, as well as across regions.

Allow users to specify a priority where you want the spaces to end up.

2.2.5.1 Decimal alignment

To improve decimal alignment, extend the character alignment in table cells to permit a specification of the horizontal position of the alignment point within the column.

2.2.5.2 Table header/footer on boundaries

Be able to specify different instances of what the table header or footer should be depending on the different boundaries (page, column and region). This also would allow specifying that certain headers must be omitted at certain boundaries.

2.2.5.3 Split tables

Allow users to specify that tables can be split horizontally. It should be possible to have a column repeated when the table is split horizontally, by specifying a row header. There should be a way to keep the split parts visually next to each other depending on binding edge.

In case a table is split over multiple pages and both the rows and columns don’t fit a page, allow users to specify which table part comes out in which order (rows first or columns first).

This graphic shows a table before it is split. Neither all of the rows, nor all of the columns fit on one page, so the table needs to be split.

The following graphics show 4 pages that contain the split table. The order in which the pages will come out depends on the users preference, and the two alternatives are marked with green (columns first) and blue (rows first) numbers.

2.2.5.4 Repeat contents of split spanned cell

Allow users to specify that when a spanned cell in a table is split, the entire cell contents should be repeated on each table instance. This applies to splitting as well as spanning in the block-progression-direction as well as the inline-progression-direction.

2.2.5.5 Cell borders extending beyond the table

Allow the column lines to extend down or right the table to visually indicate that the table continues. When this happens, any vertical border should be extended beyond the bottom border for the last row or right column.

2.2.5.6 Adjacent borders

When one formatting object is immediately preceding another in block-progression-dimension, be able to specify what to do with their adjacent borders.

2.2.5.7 Borders on break

Allow having different borders when a break occurs so that a formatting object is split, e.g. a cell that splits, have a thinner border for the split.

2.2.5.8 Spanning cell over all row and columns

The current specification of XSL says that number-rows-spanned and number-columns-spanned should be a positive integer. Other specifications, such as HTML 4.01, allow 0 as a value, which means that all rows or columns of the current table section are spanned over. This behavior may be added to XSL 2.0, either by allowing 0 as a value, or some other solution.

2.2.7.1 Additional numbering

Add support for line number, column number and region number. For example number only every fifth line, etc.

The following are requirements for line numbers, but they apply to columns numbers and region numbers as well:

• Line numbering side (start/end/...)

• Line numbering separation -- distance of number from the text

• Line numbering format (1, 2, 3...; 001, 002, 003...; A, B, C...)

• Line numbering text properties (font-family, font-size, ...)

• Starting line number -- 1 by default, but can be changed by user

• Continuation -- should numbering continue from previous object, or should be restarted

• Line numbering restart -- where numbering restarts (document, page-sequence, object, page, column)

• Line number only each n -th number

• Line number separator

• Line number alignment

2.2.7.2 Cross-references to other numbers

Allow users to make cross-references to anything that can be numbered, such as the numbers introduced in 2.2.7.1 Additional numbering .

2.2.7.3 Calculations with page numbers

It should be possible to do calculations with page numbers. For example to determine the number of pages in a section.

2.2.7.4 Multiple sets of page numbers

Have multiple series of page numbers in the whole document that can be output on selected pages (even outputting multiple page numbers on the same page). As an example, take the case where a document contains both a letter and a contract. In that case, you want to be able to have a page number starting from 1 for the entire document, that is also output on all pages, as well as a page number starting from 1 for just the contract that is only output on the pages of the contract.

2.2.7.5 Control increments of page numbers

Specify that page numbers should not increment on certain pages.

For example, the case where back side containing the 'conditions of sale' shouldn't be numbered and thus the page number shouldn't be incremented. A document containing 4 pages, page 1 with page number '1', page 2 being the back side of page 1 containing conditions of sale and not numbered, page 3 with page number '2', page 4 being the back side of page 3 containing conditions of sale and not numbered again. What is actually being accomplished is simulating printing a 2 page document (with page numbers 1 and 2) on 2 sheets of preprinted paper, each containing the conditions of sale on the back side.

2.2.8.1 Textual cross-references

We want the formatter to detect where the cross-referenced object is located (e.g. where on the page, or on which page such as the previous page). We want to allow the insertion of variable text for cross-references depending on both the page number on which the cross-reference appears and the target page, for example 'see previous page' or 'see opposite page'.

2.2.8.2 Cross-reference to a specific region on a page

Support cross-refernces that refer to a specific region on a page (e.g. near the top, bottom, above on this page etc.).

2.2.8.3 Cross-reference ranges and coalescing

Allow in cross-referencing page number (and line number, column number etc) ranges that include coalescing, joining etc.

2.2.9.1 List all markers

Extend retrieve-marker and retrieve-table-marker to enable listing all markers on the page (e.g. to list all index terms on the page or show a list of destinations in a list of hotels). Provide in a way to ‘carry-over’ the markers from previous (not following) pages. This should be done in all cases, not just in the case the current page contains no markers.

2.2.9.2 Organize all markers

When retrieving all markers of a page, add the ability to organize them. This includes removing duplicates, sorting markers and indicating how to format them (e.g. each marker on a separate line or separated with commas).

2.2.9.3 Coalescing markers

Add support for coalescing markers, for example if you have at the top of the page ‘A - B’. Where A and B are retrieved markers. If A and B are the same, the text should just be ‘A’.

2.2.9.4 Generalized markers

Add the ability to retrieve markers from any region into any region (and not just from the flow to the static regions).

2.2.11.1 Column balancing

Add support for column balancing.

2.2.11.2 Column spanning

Add support for spanning over less than the total number of columns.

2.2.11.3 Spanning columns in nested formatting objects

Allow the span property to have effect when specified on formatting objects that are not direct children of an fo:flow.

2.2.11.4 Strong vs. weak spanning

Give control over how the text flows when spanning columns over the entire page. In the following images, the numbers note the reading order of the specific location within the page.

2.2.11.5 Multiple columns of different widths

Allow specifying multiple columns of different widths.

2.2.11.6 Multi-column layout in all regions and block-containers

Allow specifying multiple columns in all regions and also in block-containers, not just the region-body.

2.2.12.1 Interleaving layout-master-set

Be able to define layout-master-sets not only at the top of the FO tree, but also interleaving page-sequences, to allow users to define and change masters, such as simple-page-master and page-sequence master, on the fly instead of having to specify all the masters in the beginning of the FO tree. When traversing the FO tree in pre-order traversal, the master must be defined before it may be referenced by a master-reference property.

2.2.12.2 Repeatable sub-sequence-specifier

Have sets of pages repeatable within the same page-sequence.

2.2.12.3 Change master every n pages

Allow specifying that every n -th page, a different master should be used. This is a specific case of 2.2.12.2 Repeatable sub-sequence-specifier . For example, use master A for page 1, 2, 3, 4, then master B for page 5, then master A again for 6, 7, 8, 9 then master B for page 10, etc...

2.2.12.4 Background content

Add background content, such as images but also any other content, to a page master or region master.