Using SVG in XML Thesis

The first challenge that I looked into was graphs and charts; hopefully I found a procedure that I'm ok with. I wanted to use SVG, which Prince supports, as a scalable image source. To generate the SVG, there's really two feasible options in my mind:

1. Embed the data directly into the source XML file and preprocess with an XSLT file, a la here. This is a really cool option, but you have to have a smooth XSLT translation and you'd lose fine-grained control over a lot of the elements without specifying a lot of presentation information in your data. However, I will play with that a bit to see if I can get something working.
2. Use a SVG graph/chart exporter to create the SVG files. This is actually harder to do then you'd think. No MS product does this, and while OpenOffice can theoretically, its a two program task (Calc->Draw->SVG) and I personally couldn't get the text to output. I finally found GraPL, which in my opinion was the best way to get a graph into SVG from a client-side spreadsheet and looking good. The trial version actually lets you import data and export to SVG, so if you are ok with not saving your graph settings you can do it for free.

Like I said, I'll try the first method first, but I'm honestly expecting it not to live up to my ideals. I'll give updates on how this goes, in addition to my explorations with other neat things, like an XML-driven JSP thesis-o-meter.