To learn more about the XSL, read our XSL tutorial.

XSL 1.0 was released as the W3C Recommendation 15. October 2001 as a language for expressing style sheets. It consists of the three parts: XSLT, XPath, and XSL Formatting Objects. An XSL style sheet specifies the presentation of a class of the XML documents by describing how an instance of the class is transformed into an XML document that uses the formatting vocabulary.

XSLT 1.0 was released as the W3C Recommendation 16. November 1999. XSLT is a language for transforming the XML documents into other XML documents.

The W3C was created to lead the Web to its full potential by developing common protocols that promote its evolution and ensure its interoperability. It is an international industry consortium jointly run by the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (MIT CSAIL) in the USA, the European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics (ERCIM) headquartered in France and Keio University in Japan. Services provided by the Consortium include: a repository of information about the World Wide Web for developers and users, and various prototype and sample applications to demonstrate use of new technology. To date, nearly 400 organizations are Members of the Consortium

XSL Formatting Objects is an XML vocabulary for specifying the formatting semantics. Formatting is the process of turning the result of the XSL transformation into a suitable output form for a reader or listener. No separate W3C document exists for the XSL Formatting Objects, but a description can be found inside the XSL 1.0 Recommendation.

W3C XSL Home Page