To achieve the encoding I'm using a built-in Java function available in an extension to the XSLT Processor (Xalan) as below:-

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UFT-8"?>
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" xmlns:exslt="http://exslt.org/common"
xmlns:encoder="xalan://java.net.URLEncoder">

<xsl:output method="xml" version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" indent="yes"/>
and later in my template

/preview.xml?name=<xsl:value-of select="encoder:encode(string(title_node))"/>

The problem is, it's encoding spaces as '+' and not '%20' which I was expecting (and need).

Has anyone tried this before and does anyone think it can be fixed with the encoding?

Any advice appreciated