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This document describes a mechanism for associating stylesheets with XML documents.
Stylesheets can be associated with an XML document by using a processing instruction whose target is xml:stylesheet. This processing instruction follows the behaviour of <LINK REL="stylesheet"> in HTML 4.0.
The xml:stylesheet processing instruction is allowed anywhere in the prolog of an XML document. The processing instruction can have pseudo-attributes href (required), type (required), title (optional), media (optional), charset (optional). The semantics are exactly as with <LINK REL="stylesheet"> in HTML 4.0. There is also an xml:alternate-stylesheet processing instruction which is equivalent to <LINK REL="alternate stylesheet">.
Here are some examples from HTML 4.0 with the corresponding processing instruction:
<LINK href="mystyle.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"> <?xml:stylesheet href="mystyle.css" type="text/css"?> <LINK href="mystyle.css" title="Compact" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"> <?xml:stylesheet href="mystyle.css" title="Compact" type="text/css"?> <LINK href="mystyle.css" title="Medium" rel="alternate stylesheet" type="text/css"> <?xml:alternate-stylesheet href="mystyle.css" title="Medium" type="text/css"?>
Multiple processing instructions are also allowed with exactly the same semantics as with LINK REL="stylesheet". For example,
<LINK rel="alternate stylesheet" title="compact" href="small-base.css" type="text/css"> <LINK rel="alternate stylesheet" title="compact" href="small-extras.css" type="text/css"> <LINK rel="alternate stylesheet" title="big print" href="bigprint.css" type="text/css"> <LINK rel="stylesheet" href="common.css" type="text/css">
would be equivalent to:
<?xml:alternate-stylesheet title="compact" href="small-base.css" type="text/css"?> <?xml:alternate-stylesheet title="compact" href="small-extras.css" type="text/css"?> <?xml:alternate-stylesheet title="big print" href="bigprint.css" type="text/css"?> <?xml:stylesheet href="common.css" type="text/css"?>