How to Generate Word Documents Using XSLT

Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformations (XSLT) is a newer version of Extensible Stylesheet Language (XLT). XSLT defines the formating for XML (Extensible Markup Language) documents. XSLT works as a type of template for how all of the data will be displayed in XML data presentations. The Microsoft word-processing application, Word, works well with XSLT and XML. Microsoft even includes a XML reader with some of their Office application suites that can also convert Word documents into the XML format. In return, use XSLT to generate and format Word documents.

Instructions

1. Open the program you use to create XSLT programs, such as Visual Studio or a text-editing program. Create a new file or open an exiting file that you want to add this function to.

2. Add references so that the XSLT code understands the functions that you will have to use to generate the Word document.

   "Imports System

   Imports System.Collections.Generic

   Imports System.Drawing

   Imports System.Text

   Imports System.Windows.Forms

   Imports System.Xml

   Imports System.Xml.Xsl

   Imports System.Xml.XPath

   Imports.IO"

3. Add the code to generate the Word document. The following code uses the XmlTextWriter to create a Rich Text Format, or RTF, document that can be opened in Microsoft Word.

   "Dim xDoc as XmlDataDocument

   Dim xPath as XPathNavigator

   Dim xWriter as XmlTextWriter

   Dim xRoot as XmlElement

   Dim xCompile as xslCompiledTransform

   xDoc - New XmlDataDocument

   xRoot = xDoc.DocumentElement

   xPath = xRoot.CreateNavigator()

   xWriter = New XmlTextWriter("Text.rtf", System.Text.Encoding.Default)

   xCompile.transform(xPath, xWriter)

   xWriter.Close()"

4. Save the XSLT document.

References

• MSDN: What is XSLT?
• VB.Net Heaven: Creating MS Word Document Using VB.Net, XML and XSLT