region-before and region-after Sub Elements

XSL-FO Tutorials - Herong's Tutorial Examples

∟region-before and region-after Sub Elements

This section describes optional region-before and region-after sub elements of the simple-page-master page layout. They are used to declare header and footer areas on the page in most cases.

"simple-page-master" page layout has 5 regions: region-body, region-before, region-after, region-start, and region-end. We have reviewed the "region-body" region in the previous section. Now we will review the next two regions: "region-before" and "region-after".

What are "region-before" and "region-after"? "region-before" and "region-after" are optional sub elements of the XSL-FO page layout declaration element "simple-page-master" to declare special regions at both ends of the Block Progression Direction on the page.

For example, if "simple-page-master" is declared with writing-mode="lr-tb", "region-before" and "region-after" regions will be located at the top edge and the bottom edge of the page, because the Block Progression Direction runs from top to bottom of the page.

"region-before" and "region-after" share the following attributes:

region-name="..." - Optional attribute to specify the name for this region. Default is region-name="xsl-region-before", or region-name="xsl-region-after".
extent="..." - Optional attribute to specify the block-progression-dimension of the region. Default is extent="0pt". If you need present content to the region, a positive value should be specified to avoid overflow.
display-align="..." - Optional attribute to specify the alignment, in the Block Progression Direction, of child block areas of the region. Possible values are: auto, before, center and after. Default is extent="auto".
precedence="..." - Optional attribute to specify whether the region should take precedence to extend the inline-progression-dimension up to the start-edge and end-edge of the page content area. Default is extent="false".
border-*="..." - Optional attributes, but only allowed with 0 width.
padding-*="..." - Optional attributes, but only allowed with 0 width.
background-*="..." - Optional attributes to specify background color and other related properties of the region.
overflow="..." - Same as in "region-body" element.
clip="..." - Same as in "region-body" element.
reference-orientation="..." - Same as in "region-body" element.
writing-mode="..." - Same as in "region-body" element.

Note that border="..." and padding="..." should not be used, because only 0 width is allows. In other words, "region-before" and "region-before" will have no border and no padding.

Note that margin="..." should not be used, because is not supported in "region-before" and "region-after" elements.

Here is an example <region-before ...> element with a given name, extent and background color:

   <fo:region-before region-name="my_header" background-color="#ffeeee"
   extent="0.5in" precedence="false"
   reference-orientation="0" writing-mode="lr-tb"/>