How do the XML transforms work?

You use the xml2afp and xml2pdf to transform XML data to an AFP or a PDF data stream. To do this, you must supply one of these to the XML transforms::

  • XML files (or data sets), which do not contain data placement and presentation information, and an accompanying XSL style sheet
  • XSL-FO files (or data sets), which contain XML data with XSL formatting objects

To transform XML data to AFP or PDF, the XML transforms use the data you supply and do one of these:

  • Uses the XSL style sheet to transform the XML files into XSL-FO and then completes the transformation to AFP or PDF
  • Directly transforms your supplied XSL-FO files to AFP or PDF

The following figure shows how the XML transforms process data from XML to AFP or PDF data.

Process for transforming XML data to AFP or PDF

XML Extender takes XML data, either XML files plus an XSL stylesheet or XSL-FO files, and transforms the data to AFP or PDF.

Parent topic: Working with the XML transforms