Tip: Customising Content Query Web Part XSL

There has been a plethora of articles on customising the XSL of a content query web part, some even from Microsoft ;)

I wont run over the step by step process but just add to this wealth of information a little tip on making the XSL a little easier to manage and support.

As we have learnt the XSL used to render the output is split into 3 files;
ContentQueryMain.xsl
ItemStyle.xsl
Header.xsl

All three of these files will exist in the '\Style Library\XSL Style Sheets\' library of a site created using the Publishing template.

Instead of modifying these files it is possible to create your own custom XSL style sheets for each and tell your CQWP to use these by specifying the properties as follows;

HeaderXslLink = "/Style Library/XSL Style Sheets/customHeader.xsl"
ItemXslLink = "/Style Library/XSL Style Sheets/customItem.xsl"
MainXslLink ="/Style Library/XSL Style Sheets/customMain.xsl"