HTML Formatting
As text pasted into the Text Editor will lose any formatting applied within the word processor (i.e. it is transferred as plain text), formatting should be applied in the Text Editor and Text Box Properties dialogs respectively. Whereas the Text Box Properties dialog is used to apply global formatting (e.g. if a bold font is chosen then all of the text placed into a selected text box will appear in bold), the commands available by clicking the buttons at the bottom of the Text Editor are applied to selected sections of the text (e.g. a single word may be selected and then made to appear in bold text). The formatting of selected text is generally performed by adding HTML ætagsÆ at the start and end of the selection - e.g. the word æHeadingÆ is made bold by tagging it like this: æ<b>Heading</b>Æ (the æ<b>Æ tag turns bold on and the æ</b>Æ tag turns bold off).
It is also possible to change the font colour or face (typeface) for selected text. This is useful when, for example, you wish a heading or sub-heading to have a different appearance to the rest of the body text, and is generally more convenient than adding an additional text box for the purpose (although if the change of style will be repeated many times, it is probablybest to define a Text Class for this purpose - see the main help ) page. The Font Color button [F7] places a font color tag around selected text and inserts a hexadecimal color value according to the Color Mixer settings. The Font Face button [F8] is used similarly to change the typeface (font). Note: The page view within Cascade DTP will not show changes to the font face or font color. Use Box Preview or Preview to see exactly how the list will be rendered.
The angle brackets at either side of the HTML tags are used to identify the enclosed characters(s) as a formatting command and your browser will not normally display them. However, visible angle brackets can be placed into the text using the symbol buttons located near the bottom of the Text Editor window (look for the row of buttons with a white background). Symbols are also provided for a number of other special characters that may not appear on your keyboard. Note: some fonts will not display all of the symbol characters correctly.
The Break [F2] command is not designed to be applied to blocks of text. Instead, it generates a single tag (<br />) that may be added at the end of a line to force a æreturnÆ (start of a new line).
Lists
The Ordered List and Unordered List buttons are used in conjunction with the List Item button as follows. First, all of the text to be listed is selected and either the Ordered List (for a numbered list) or Unordered List (for a bulleted list) button is clicked.The individual list items are then selected and the List Item button is clicked to tag each one. Here is an example of the resultant code for a bulleted (unordered) list:
Text preceding list<ul>
<li>first item</li>
<li>second item</li>
<li>third item</li>
</ul>Text following list.
Note that the <ul> (unordered list) tag is placed before the first <li> (list item) tag, and the </ul> (end of unordered list) tag is placed after the final </li> (end of list item) tag. This is how the list will be displayed:
Text preceding list
Note: The page view within Cascade DTP will show the bullet points of an unordered list as asterisks, and the item numbers of an ordered list will be replaced by the letter N. Use Box Preview or Preview to see exactly how the list will be rendered.
Text Wrapping
If an image is placed over a text box, the text will not automatically wrap around the image. In order to overcome this limitation, the Text Editor provides two commands - Left Wrap and Right Wrap. Clicking Left Wrap will insert the following HTML tag:
<IMG SRC="clear.gif" width=150 height=150 align=left>
This command places a transparent image (the file clear.gif) at the insertion point. The width and height commands determine the size of the image, the default being 150 x 150 pixels. Because the transparent image is rendered within the text box, text will flow around it. An image box (or even another text box) can now be positioned over the rectangular area around which the text has flowed. providing that the width and height commands have been set appropriately (it will usually be necessary to edit the default values), the result will be the same as if the text had wrapped around the visible image.
Remember to click Place Text after inserting the wrap command and also after making any changes to the width and height values. Left Wrap is used to create an indented area on the left side of the text box while Right Wrap achieves the opposite. Note: The page view within Cascade DTP will not show the effect of text wrapping. You must click either Preview or Box Preview to see this.
The file clear.gif is located in the Cascade DTP folder (C:\Program Files\Cascade DTP V4 is the default location created when Cascade DTP is installed). A copy of this file must be uploaded to the web server.
Deleting Format Tags
previously applied formatting may be removed by deleting the relevant HTML tags. Simply select the formatting command (including the angle brackets) and press the keyboard Delete key. If the redundant formatting is other than a line or paragraph break, you must separately delete the tags at the beginning and end of the affected text.
The Text Editor will display the angle brackets and the text between them in blue. However, if an HTML tag is edited manually the blue highlighting will not automatically update. To refresh the highlighting, press F11.
Placing Text
The Place Text button is used to transfer text into a selected text box. If no text is selected, all of the Text Editor text will be placed (although it will still appear in the Text Editor). In order to place only part of the Text Editor text, select this beforehand.
Note: Double clicking a text box will launch the Text Editor (assuming it is not already visible), and any text already placed in the box will appear in the Text Editor. You can then further edit the text and click the Place Text button to update the text box contents. However, any text that was loaded into the Text Editor prior to double clicking the text box will be lost. For this reason, you may wish to select any existing Text Editor text and cut it onto the Windows clipboard prior to double clicking the text box. When you have finished editing and updating the text box, the original Text Editor text may be pasted back.
The Text Editor uses the MS Serif typeface for all text, irrespective of any Text Box Properties font selection. When sections of text are made bold and/or italic, these aspects of the formatting will be shown in the Text Editor. However, previously formatted text that is re-loaded into the Text Editor (either from a text box or the Windows clipboard) will no longer adopt the formatted appearance (although the HTML tags will still be visible and highlighted in blue).