Apply a style sheet to an XML report to specify how a web browser or external viewer application displays the XML content. Use the Style Sheet control on the Contents tab of the Report Options dialog box to select the style sheet to apply to an XML report.

The <xml-style sheet> node of an XML report contains the URL path of the style sheet to apply to the XML file, as shown in the following example in which the <xml-style sheet> node references the built-in horizontal.xsl TestStand style sheet:

<?xml-style sheet type="text/xsl" href="C:\Program Files\National Instruments\TestStand 2014\Components\Models\TestStandModels\StyleSheets\horizontal.xsl"?>

Built-in Style Sheets

TestStand provides the following style sheets, located in the <TestStand>\Components\Models\TestStandModels\StyleSheets directory. You can customize the style sheets directly.

  • horizontal.xsl—Displays reports in a horizontal, tabular, indented format with data for each step in one or more rows, as shown in the following figure.
  • report.xsl—Displays reports in a vertical, tabular, indented format with data for each step in multiple rows, as shown in the following figure. Customizable, color-coded rows visually separate relevant information, such as step group, status, and so on.
  • expand.xsl—Displays reports similar to report.xsl, with expandable and collapsible sections for each step or for the entire report, as shown in the following figure. The report displays each step result as a separate table.

Using Foreign Characters in XML Report Style Sheets

Using some foreign characters in the XML report style sheets might result in the error "An invalid character was found in text content." To work around this issue, use the HTML code equivalent for the foreign character or add the appropriate encoding attribute to the <xsl:output> tag of the style sheet.