>
<div class="content">
      Please note that the intermediate format is an <strong>advanced feature</strong> and can be ignored by most
      users of Apache FOP.
    </div>
</div>
    
<a name="N10017"></a><a name="introduction"></a>
<h2 class="underlined_10">Introduction</h2>
<div class="section">
<p>
        The intermediate format (IF) is a proprietary XML format that represents the area tree 
        generated by the layout engine. The area tree is conceptually defined in the 
        <a class="exter