Editing Tools

Source. USEFUL-CAUTION. (Ctl-Tab).This allows you to view the XHTML source. You see only the <galley-rw> text, not the entire XHTML page. This is useful for repairs to XHTML if you know what you are doing. If you directly edit in source mode without taking due care you may damage your file. It is highly advisable to click Save & Continue before modifying the source. Any problems can then be undo using the page Revision Management.

Paste as Plain Text. USEFUL. Click on this button and a dialog box will open. Paste your text into the dialog box and click OK.  The text will be pasted into your document. Note that depending on the source of your paste action, the text may or may not create correct paragraphs. You may have to join text and use Enter to recreate Normal paragraphs.

 Paste from Word. USEFUL-CAUTION. Click on this button and a dialog box will open. Paste your text into the dialog box and click OK.  The text will be pasted into your document. Depending on the complexity of the styling on the source content, pasting from Word may introduce unwanted inline styles. This can affect the processing of the document in other formats, including making them invalid when validated. It is generally best to import Word documents using the Manuscript importer. For small fragments paste them to a text editor first to ensure all style residues are removed. Then paste them into the Writer document. It is highly advisable to click Save & Continue before using Cut, Paste from Word, Undo or Redo. This gives you a full recovery position using the Page History Manager.

Undo. USEFUL-CAUTION.(Ctl-Z) This works reliably when the clipboard contains text content, but can have unpredictable behaviour when the clipboard has complex structures such as blocks. Note that on an Undo action the full screen will be refreshed and will flicker. It is highly advisable to click Save & Continue before using Cut, Paste from Word, Undo or Redo. Any problems can then be undo using the Page History Manager.

Redo. USEFUL-CAUTION. (Ctl-Y). This behaves like the Undo tool. Sometimes it will give unexpected results, depending on the previous action. Make sure you observe what happens as you use this operation.

Find. USEFUL. Click Find and enter the text you wish to locate on the page. The tool will locate the term in the forward (downward) direction,

Replace. USEFUL. You can search through the document and replace any character string with what you want. This has a Replace All option and will operate on all specified strings on the page.

Remove Format. IMPORTANT. When you apply inline styles from the interface, such as font color and size, you can instantly remove them by highlighting the text and clicking the Format eraser tool.

Text Color. USEFUL. You can apply spot text color when required. Select you text and click this button. A color selection dialog box will appear. Choose your color and click OK. To clear a color, reselect the text and click Remove Format.

Text Background Color. USEFUL. Select text and click this button. A colour selection dialog box will appear. Choose your color and click OK. To clear a color, reselect the text and click Remove Format.

Insert Special Character. IMPORTANT. Position your cursor where you want to insert a special character or select a character you want to replace. Click to open the Special Character dialog. Select the character you want to insert and click OK. The character will be inserted at the cursor position. The default Special Character dialog contains ASCII, Latin-1 and special punctuation characters.

Insert Page Break. USEFUL. Only works on print output. From time to time you may need to force a page-break into your document. Position your cursor where you want the page-break to appear. This is usually best in an empty paragraph. Click the button and a Page Break will be inserted. This can be removed by selecting the Page Break marker and using backspace or delete.

Show Blocks. USEFUL. This is a very useful feature for editors concerned with layout if they understand the underlying XML behaviour. Click this icon to outline all major blocks with a dotted line. Click again to remove the block outlines. Note this is an editorial assistant only and does not affect any output.

Bold. USEFUL.(Ctl-B). Select any text and click this button or use the shortcut key to make the text bold.

Italic. USEFUL. (Ctl-I). Select any text and click this button or use the shortcut key to make the text italic.

Underline. USEFUL. (Ctl-U). Select any text and click this button or use the shortcut key to underline the text.

Strike Through. USEFUL. Select any text and click this button or use the shortcut key to make the text strike through.

Sub Script. USEFUL. Select any text and click this button or use the shortcut key to make the text Sub Script.

Super Script. USEFUL. Select any text and click this button or use the shortcut key to make the text Super Script. Note that 

Ordered List. IMPORTANT. Select a range of paragraphs. Click Ordered List and the paragraphs will be transformed to a list. To undo, select the list items and click Ordered List again. The styling will be removed. To indent list items select the internal items and click Increase Indent. The list items will create a second level nested structure. To indent mixed bullet and ordered lists, do the indent action first, and the list style change action second.

Bulleted List. IMPORTANT. Select a range of paragraphs. Click Bulleted List and the paragraphs will be transformed to a list. To undo, select the list items and click Bulleted List again. The styling will be removed. To indent list items select the internal items and click Increase Indent. The list items will create a second level nested structure. To indent mixed bullet and ordered lists, do the indent action first, and the list style change action second.

Decrease Indent. IMPORTANT-CAUTION. Decrease Indent reverses an Increase Indent.  is very useful to style nested lists, but should be used with extreme caution on general bodytext and other structures. See more information in Increase Indent.

Increase Indent. IMPORTANT-CAUTION. Increase indent is very useful to style nested lists, but should be used with extreme caution on general bodytext and other structures as it introduces an HTML <blockquote> element. This may behave unpredictably in some formats and is also semantically incorrect for most indent text applications. Use para styles for indented text.

Left Align. CAUTION. Select text and click Left Align. The text will be left aligned, ragged-right. The primary text align property of your document is controlled by the CSS. If you use this element it will over-ride all other styles, and will be transparent in the edit view.  This style can be corrected by using other alignments, but once applied all text-alignment statements remain in the XHTML. To remove it completely you will have to use source mode and remove the class statement.

Center Align. USEFUL. Place the cursor in a paragraph or select text and click Center Align. This will align text to the center of the galley. To remove this alignment immediately after it is applied you an use Undo.  This style can be corrected by using other alignments, but once applied all text-alignment statements remain in the XHTML. To remove it completely you will have to use source mode and remove the class statement.

Right Align. USEFUL. Place the cursor in a paragraph or select text and click Right Align. This will align text right with ragged-left. To remove this alignment immediately after it is applied you an use Undo. This style can be corrected by using other alignments, but once applied all text-alignment statements remain in the XHTML. To remove it completely you will have to use source mode and remove the class statement.

Justify. CAUTION. Select text and click Justify. The text will be fully justified left and right. Note that the primary text align property of your document is controlled by the CSS. If you use this element it will over-ride all other styles and may have unpredictable results in some or all formats. This style can be corrected by using other alignments, but once applied all text-alignment statements remain in the XHTML. To remove it completely you will have to use source mode and remove the class statement.

Insert/Edit Link. IMPORTANT. Select text and click Insert/Edit Link to apply a hyperlink to the selected text. This is not generally required in an IGP:Digital Publisher document as links are generated automatically where required.

Remove Link. IMPORTANT.Select text that has a link applied and click Remove Link. The link and all information about the link will be immediately removed.

Insert / Edit Anchor. IMPORTANT. You can create a target anchor anywhere in your document. Position your cursor at the point where you want to insert  the anchor. Click the icon. A dialog box will open allowing you to assign the anchor name. Make sure this is unique as all targets must be exclusive. Click OK to insert the anchor and close the dialog.

Style. IMPORTANT. You will use this to add pre-defined styles to selected text and paragraphs. The items on this list may change according to your setup. The defaults are: Drop-Caps, Raised-Caps, Small-Caps, Uppercase and Lowercase. Note these are applied styles and do not change the case of the underlying text. Some eBook formats cannot do these transforms in which case the format processor will synthesis the effect by manipulating the text size and case when generating the formats.

Format. IMPORTANT. You will use this to add major galley styles such as Headers and bodytext. By default the body text is Normal. In IGP:Digital Publisher <h1> is reserved for Titles. This is an important condition for eBook Generation, title regeneration and a number of other independent format generation issues. Only use <h1> in a Title Block. All other headers (<h2>...<h6>) are used for galley headers from A-Head to E-Head. When using titles in Content blocks ALWAY start at <h3> to ensure these do not clash with body headers and to ensure format generators process them correctly.

Font. CAUTION. The interface provides for a basic set of fonts that can be applied to selected text. However, except in a very informal document, font variations are not needed as they are carried in the template CSS and other components. Use this with caution and remember the font you select must be available for all formats you are creating or the effect will not be carried across to other user's workstations, or the print rendering software.

Size. CAUTION. From time to time extraordinary font sizes may be required that are not defined in a template CSS. You can apply Small, Big and Large font sizes, which are handled from the default stylesheets as predefined sizes based on the normal bodytext size. Using ad-hoc sizes is not recommended as some formats may not respond, or in print line-height restrictions may be in place and content in the output may overlap.