The fo:repeatable-page-master-alternatives formatting object is the most complex sub-sequence-specifier. It specifies a sub-sequence consisting of repeated instances of a set of alternative page-masters. The number of repetitions may be bounded or potentially unbounded. Which of the alternative page-masters is used at any point in the sequence depends on the evaluation of a condition on the use of the alternative. Typical conditions include, testing whether the page which is generated using the alternative is the first or last page in a page-sequence or is the page blank. The full set of conditions allows different page-masters to be used for the first page, for odd and even pages, for blank pages.
NOTE
Because the conditions are tested in order from the beginning of the sequence of children, the last alternative in the sequence usually has a condition that is always true and this alternative references the page-master that is used for all pages that do not receive some specialized layout.
Areas
The fo:repeatable-page-master-alternatives formatting object generates no area directly. This formatting object is used by the fo:page-sequence formatting object to generate pages.
Constraints
The children of the fo:repeatable-page-master-alternatives are fo:conditional-page-master-references. These children will be called alternatives.
The sub-sequence of pages mapped to this sub-sequence-specifier satisfies the constraints of this sub-sequence-specifier if (a) the sub-sequence of pages consists of zero or more pages, (b) each page is generated using the fo:simple-page-master referenced by the one of the alternatives that are the children of the fo:repeatable-page-master-alternatives, (c) the conditions on that alternative are true, (d) that alternative is the first alternative in the sequence of children for which all the conditions are true, and (e) the length of the sub-sequence is less than or equal to the value of maximum-repeats.