What is XSLT?

If HTML is the builder, CSS is the artist, and JavaScript is the wizard, then XSLT is the translator.

XSL is the acronym for eXtensible Stylesheet Language. XSLT is the acronym for eXtensible Stylesheet Language Transformations.

XSLT was defined in 1999 when it became obvious that XML needed its own stylesheet. XSLT is to XML as CSS is to HTML.

We use XSLT to transform XML into other XML documents. We can transform one XML document into:

Another XML language
Another customization of the same XML language (e.g., one TEI customization to another TEI customization)
HTML5 (HTML5 is actually XHTML—an XML language in its own right).
ePubs
PDFs
Camera-ready copy for printed books

For this course, you don’t have to become an expert on XSLT. There are many transformations already available in Oxygen. You’ve already used at least one of them by outputting your XML-encoded sonnets as an HTML page. If you click on the wrench with the red arrow in Oxygen, you see a menu of XSLT transformations already made for you.

The learning outcome for this part of our course is that you become conversant enough with the idea of XSLT that you:

Know when you are using XSLT to convert a document from one format to another.
Know when to ask a developer to write you some XSLT (or revise your XSLT).
Have an understanding of the processing that gets your XML-encoded texts from .xml files to webpages.

Further Reading: