This example shows adding the stylesheet externally using <link> element.

styleExternal.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<?xml-stylesheet type="text/css" href="styleExternal.xsl"?>

<root>     

    <sports>

    <game>cricket</game>

    <player>Sachin Tendulkar</player>

    <trophy>Cricket World Cup</trophy>

    </sports>     

    <sports>

    <game>chess</game>

    <player>Vishwanathan Anand</player>

    <trophy>World Chess Champion</trophy>

    </sports>    

</root>

The XSL file which applies style to the above data file is:

styleExternal.xsl

<?xml version="1.0"?>

<xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version="1.0">

    <xsl:output method="html"/>

    <xsl:template match="/">

        <html>

            <head>

                <title>Sports Info</title>

                <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="thisStyle.css" />               

            </head>

            <body>

                <xsl:apply-templates/>

            </body>

        </html>

    </xsl:template>   

    <xsl:template match="sports">

        <h2><xsl:value-of select="game"/></h2>

        <para>

            <xsl:value-of select="player"/>

            <xsl:text>&#10;</xsl:text>

            <xsl:value-of select="trophy"/>     

        </para>

    </xsl:template>

</xsl:stylesheet>

The .css file which describes the style of the HTML elements:

thisStyle.css

H2{

    font-size: 22pt;

    text-decoration: underline

}

para{

    color: red

}

The output file after XSLT transformation is:

Output.html

<html>

<head>

<META http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">

<title>Sports Info</title>

<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="thisStyle.css">

</head>

<body>   

<h2>cricket</h2>

<para>Sachin Tendulkar

Cricket World Cup</para>   

<h2>chess</h2>

<para>Vishwanathan Anand

World Chess Champion</para>  

</body>

</html>

When the output is viewed in a browser:

cricket

Sachin Tendulkar Cricket World Cup

chess

Vishwanathan Anand World Chess Champion