XSL

from: http://www.w3schools.com/xsl/xsl_languages.asp

It started with XSL and ended up with XSLT, XPath, and XSL-FO.

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It Started with XSL

XSL stands for EXtensible Stylesheet Language.
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) started to develop XSL because there was a need for an XML-based Stylesheet Language.

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CSS = Style Sheets for HTML

HTML uses predefined tags, and the meaning of each tag is well understood.
The <table> tag in HTML defines a table - and a browser knows how to display it.
Adding styles to HTML elements are simple. Telling a browser to display an element in a special font or color, is easy with CSS.

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XSL = Style Sheets for XML

XML does not use predefined tags (we can use any tag-names we like), and therefore the meaning of each tag is not well understood.
A <table> tag could mean an HTML table, a piece of furniture, or something else - and a browser does not know how to display it.
XSL describes how the XML document should be displayed!

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XSL - More Than a Style Sheet Language

XSL consists of three parts:

• XSLT - a language for transforming XML documents
• XPath - a language for navigating in XML documents
• XSL-FO - a language for formatting XML documents