What Is "page-sequence-master"

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∟What Is "page-sequence-master"

This section describes page-sequence-master, which declares a sequence of layouts with existing 'simple-page-master' layouts.

In the previous tutorial, we have learned how to apply a "simple-page-master" to a "page-sequence". As you can see from the output, "simple-page-master" is good enough to generate a simple book, which has the same layout on each every page.

If you want to generate a book that has different layouts on different pages, like cover page, first page of a chapter, index pages, etc., you need to learn the "page-sequence-master" declaration element.

What Is "page-sequence-master"? "page-sequence-master" is an XSL-FO page layout sequence declaration element. It declares a sequence of layouts with existing "simple-page-master" layouts using the following structure:

  <fo:page-sequence-master master-name="...">

   <!-- optional -->
   <fo:single-page-master-reference master-reference="..."/>

   <!-- optional -->
   <fo:repeatable-page-master-reference master-reference="..."
    maximum-repeats="..."/>

   <!-- optional -->
   <fo:repeatable-page-master-alternatives 
    maximum-repeats="...">
    <fo:conditional-page-master-reference master-reference="..." .../>
    <fo:conditional-page-master-reference master-reference="..." .../>
    ...
   </fo:repeatable-page-master-alternatives>

   ...
  </fo:page-sequence-master>

As you can see from the above structure, a "page-sequence-master" is made by 3 types of optional sub sequences of layouts:

single-page-master-reference - Produce 1 page layout with the specified layout.
repeatable-page-master-reference - Produce multiple page layouts by repeating the specified layout multiple times.
repeatable-page-master-alternatives - Produce multiple page layouts by selecting one layout from its alternative list each time when it repeats.

Once a "page-sequence-master" is declared, it can be applied to a "page-sequence" in the same way as the "simple-page-master". But you need to remember the following rules to be able to use "page-sequence-master" correctly:

One-to-One Mapping - Each page in the page sequence is mapped to one layout in the layout sequence. In other words, the first page is mapped to the first layout, the second page is mapped to the second layout, and so on.
Same Region Name across Layouts - Each region must have the same name in all layouts in the layout sequence.