Formatting Elements

How to get here: In Settings on the PDF or RTF Configuration tab, select Files & Format > Page Layout > Formatting

Default Setting

The text in your document is formatted using Formatting Elements. Formatting Elements store character formatting such as font name, size, color and paragraph formatting such as indentation, alignment, vertical spacing. Use Formatting Elements to completely change the look and feel of your Help. Doc-O-Matic offers several categories of Formatting Elements.

In addition to elements in the elements list, you can create your own elements for each section type without predefined Formatting Element. All sections without predefined section element use the Text Formatting Element.

Commands on the Element Editor menu:

Delete Section Element: Deletes a dynamic section element that has been created previously. Note that you can delete only dynamic section elements.
Scale Font Size: Scales the font by the entered factor.
Reset to default Font: Resets the used font name of all selected elements to the default font.
Reset All Elements (Available as button below the list as well): Resets all elements to the factory settings.
Properties: Opens the Element Editor for the selected Formatting Element.

Procedure

To edit Formatting Elements do one of the following

Double-click an element or select it and click Change. If you select an element a short description of the element appears.
Hold down CTRL and click the element, press CTRL+A, or press SHIFT+UP/DOWN ARROW to select multiple elements.
Select Properties on the shortcut menu or click the Properties button.
Note: If you select one Text and one Paragraph element, you can only change formatting that can be changed for Text and for Paragraph elements. If you select elements of all types you can not change any formatting.
Select a category in the Category box and filter your elements.

To create a new section element

Right-click anywhere in the element list. Select Create Section Element. A list of all defined sections in your project appears.
Select the section you want to create a section element for. The new element is listed in the User Section category.
All Topic Pages elements inherit the font name of the section they appear in and they can inherit the font size of the section element, if the font size is set to Inherit.

To create a new section heading element

Right-click anywhere in the element list.
Select Create Heading Element. A list of all defined sections in your project appears.
Select the section you want to create a heading element for.
The new element is listed in the User Section category.

Terms

formatting elements In Doc-O-Matic a set of design elements that provide a look for your documentation.

text element In Doc-O-Matic a formatting element that applies only character formatting to an element.

paragraph element In Doc-O-Matic a formatting element that applies character and paragraph formatting to an element.

block element In Doc-O-Matic a formatting element that applies only paragraph formatting to an element.

user section element In Doc-O-Matic a user-defined formatting element that applies formatting to section text.