What Is "inline-container" Formatting Object?

This section describes 'inline' formatting object, which generates an inline area on the target device with its content.

What Is "inline-container" Formatting Object? "inline-container" is an inline-level formatting object that converts blocks into a bigger inline area with additional attributes to control its size, writing-mode, reference-orientation, etc. Its content is limited to a sequence of blocks only.

An "inline-container" formatting object has the following main attributes:

Here is my tutorial example, inline-container-with-Width.fo that has a "block-container" formatting object with width specified:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<!-- inline-container-Converts-Block-to-Inline.fo
 - Copyright (c) 2006 HerongYang.com. All Rights Reserved.
-->
<fo:root xmlns:fo="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Format">
 <fo:layout-master-set>
  <fo:simple-page-master master-name="page" 
   margin="0.1in" page-height="4in" page-width="3in">
   <fo:region-body region-name="body" background-color="#eeeeee"/>
  </fo:simple-page-master>
 </fo:layout-master-set>
 <fo:page-sequence master-reference="page">
  <fo:flow flow-name="body">
   <fo:block margin="0.1in" padding="0.2in"
    border-width="1px" border-style="solid"
    background-color="#eeffff" color="#000000" 
    font-family="sans-serif" font-size="10pt">
    Once upon a time
    <fo:inline-container width="0.7in" margin="0in" 
     alignment-baseline="middle">
    <fo:block background-color="#eeeeee" margin="0in"
     border-width="1px" border-style="solid"
     padding="4px">there were three little pigs</fo:block>
    </fo:inline-container>
    who lived with their Mother.
    Early one morning they woke up and their mother said, 
    "<fo:inline font-style="italic" color="#ff22ff">you're too big
    for this house and its time you left home.</fo:inline>"
   </fo:block>
  </fo:flow>
 </fo:page-sequence>
</fo:root>

If you process this example XSL-FO document with Apache FOP tool and view the output, you will see that the "block" is nicely converted into an inline area and aligned to the middle of the line area:

inline-container Converts Block to Inline
inline-container Converts Block to Inline

Table of Contents

 About This Book

 Introduction of XSL-FO

 Apache™ FOP (Formatting Objects Processor)

 RenderX XEP as an XSL-FO Tool

 Introduction of Area Model

 XSL-FO Document Basics and Examples

 Page Layout Masters

 Block-Level Formatting Objects

Inline-Level Formatting Objects

 What Are Inline-Level Formatting Objects?

 What Is "inline" Formatting Object?

 "inline" Splitting for Line Break

 What Is "line-height" Attribute?

 What Is "baseline-shift" Attribute?

 "inline" with Mixed Content

 FOP Failed on "block" inside "inline"

What Is "inline-container" Formatting Object?

 What Is "character" Formatting Object?

 What Is "leader" Formatting Object?

 What Are "page-number*" Formatting Objects?

 Including Graphics in XSL-FO document

 Table of Rows and Columns

 List, Item, Label, and Body

 Floating Blocks - "float" and "footnote"

 Hyperlinks, Table of Contents and Indexes

 Headers and Footers using "static-content"

 Font Attributes and Font Families

 Apache FOP Font Configurations

 RenderX XEP Font Configurations

 Converting HTML to PDF

 References

 Full Version in PDF/ePUB