Thank you for suggesting a way of avoiding using CDATA and escaping the &.  
My question is still this: how can I go about using data in the cell if any 
is available or replacing it, as you've suggested, with the &#160 to ensure 
the border is drawn around the cell?  As I mentioned in my original post, I 
thought there might be a way of incorporating xsl:if along with xsl:value-of, 
but I honestly don't know.
-- 
Things are more like they are now than they ever have been before.


"Neil Smith [MVP Digital Media]" wrote:

> You can use   instead of   in XML
> 
>   is the decimal code for a non-breaking space, which is
> identical to the   entity (that is only defined by HTML DTD)
> 
> There's no need to invoke CDATA and escaping here.
> 
> If you do have problems with the input HTML parsing correctly, run the
> content through "Tidy" which has bindings for a range of languages
> including .NET : See http://tidy.sourceforge.net/ and this page for
> ..NET specfic : http://users.rcn.com/creitzel/tidy.html#dotnet
> 
> The default settings are almost always fine for general use.
> 
> HTH
> Cheers - Neil
> 
> On Tue, 15 Jan 2008 15:15:01 -0800, AlBruAn
> <albruan@h....(donotspam)> wrote:
> 
> >I am using an open source HTML editor in an ASP.NET project to permit the 
> >users to create templates for form letters.  When the user chooses to save 
> >the current template, I parse the HTML to create the XSL for populating the 
> >letters and I write both the HTML and XSL to the database.  Among the things 
> >the user can do is incorporate a table in the form letter, inserting both 
> >text and data in the table.  To maintain borders around those cells that are 
> >intentionally left empty in design mode, I replace the "<td> </td>" HTML 
> >string with "<td><xsl:text 
> >disable-output-escaping="yes"><![CDATA[ ]]></xsl:text></td>" since XSL 
> >doesn't seem to like " ".
> >
> >The above works like a charm as long as there is data for all fields within 
> >the table; if data for one field is missing, the border for that cell doesn't 
> >match the borders of all the other cells in the table.  So my question is 
> >this: how can I go about using data in the cell if any is available or 
> >replacing it with the disable-output-escaping statement as shown above?  I 
> >thought there might be a way of incorporating xsl:if along with xsl:value-of, 
> >but I honestly don't know.  Anyway...
> >
> >A portion of the XML I'm reading is as follows:
> ><entity>
> >    <ProviderID>12345</ProviderID>
> >    <ProviderName>Butcher Burns, MD</ProviderName>
> >    <ClaimNumber>1Z3ED0999</ClaimNumber>
> >    <DateOfService>12/01/2005</DateOfService>
> ></entity>
> ><entity>
> >    <ProviderID>12346</ProviderID>
> >    <ProviderName>Blades Messina, MD</ProviderName>
> >    <ClaimNumber>1Z3EF0000</ClaimNumber>
> >    <DateOfService></DateOfService>
> ></entity>
> >
> >A portion of the currently-existing XSL is listed below.  The entire table 
> >containing the following snippet is inside an xsl:for-each loop.
> ><tr>
> >   <td align="right">Claim Number:</td>
> >   <td><xsl:value-of select="ClaimNumber" /></td>
> >   <td align="right">Date of Service:</td>
> >   <td><xsl:value-of select="DateOfService" /></td>
> ></tr>
> >
> >In this case, I want the fourth cell to contain the Date of Service the 
> >first time through the loop since the data is provided for that iteration.  
> >On the second iteration, the fourth cell needs to contain "<td><xsl:text 
> >disable-output-escaping="yes"><![CDATA[ ]]></xsl:text></td>" since Date of 
> >Service data isn't provided for it.
> ------------------------------------------------
> Digital Media MVP : 2004-2008
> http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/mvpfaqs
>