BODY: Headings and Blocks

This document describes the tags used for specifying text and graphic objects that can occur inside a BODY tag. These include:

Headings

H1-H6

Denote six levels of document headings. H1 is a major heading. As heading numbers increase, the font (generally bold) decreases in size. In this document, for example, "BODY: Headings and Blocks" is an H1 heading, "Headings" is H2, "H1-H6" is H3. As a default, Newt's Cape starts a new book page for H1 -- this property and font appearance can be customized via i:Appearance.

Although the HTML specification does not require headings to be "contiguous", for best results you should use H1 as a first heading (you can have more than one), and increase only one heading level at a time. In the current implementation, Newt's Cape fills in any "missing levels" or graphical headings with a default string (in i:Appearance:Missing option) to avoid errors when you tap the overview button to see the Table of Contents.

Example:

<H1>BODY: Headings and Blocks</H1>
<H2>Headings</H2>
<H3>H1-H6</H3>

Result: (earlier headings)

Example: more/missing headings

<H4>a heading 4</H4>
<H6>a heading 6</H6>

Result:

a heading 4

a heading 6

Now, for H1-H6 attributes:

ALIGN

Although it is controversial whether HTML should allow format directives since these appear to violate the spirit of SGML, from a practical standpoint, these are being added to the standard(s). In general, optional attributes can be used or ignored by the browser.

Values: LEFT (default), CENTER, RIGHT, JUSTIFY

Example:

<H5 ALIGN=CENTER>A Centered Heading5</H5>
<H5 ALIGN=RIGHT>A Right flush Heading5</H5>
<H5 ALIGN=JUSTIFY>A Justified Heading5</H5>

Result:

A Centered Heading5
A Right flush Heading5
A Justified Heading5

Blocks

Smaller is generally better -- a document that consists of a single large P or PRE block will likely run out heap.

P

Marks the beginning of a new paragraph; this may add vertical space and/or indent the first line for the new paragraph. The end tag is implicit (next P or other object), so no explicit </P> is needed (if supplied, viewers should ignore it).

Note that HTML ignores extra white space (spaces, tabs, end of line characters). If you want to control how lines are broken, indented or wrapped, you can use BR to break lines or PRE to embed pre-formatted verbatim lines of characters. You can also use tables to lay out text, graphics and form objects.

ALIGN

Same as ALIGN for headings. Note: for 1.x compatible books, any paragraph with links will be LEFT.

This is a justified paragraph.

this is CENTER

this is RIGHT

PRE

Encloses a pre-formatted section of text which preserve spaces and line breaks. Tabs can be included, as well as anchor elements and phrase markup, but may yield different results in different viewers. PRE is typically rendered in a mono-spaced/fixed-width font like Monaco. The Newton ROM may not include such a fixed-width font, but you can install one (e.g., we provide Monaco to registered users). Earlier versions of HTML supported XMP and LISTING tags. PRE should be used instead.

Example:

<PRE>
line1
   line2
line3
</PRE>

WIDTH

PRE can include an optional WIDTH attribute whose value is a number of characters. Not yet implemented.

ADDRESS

Specifies address information, usually at the beginning or end of a document.

Example:

<ADDRESS>
Greg Simon - <A HREF="mailto:greg@accesscom.com">greg@accesscom.com</A>
</ADDRESS>

Result (at the end of this document)

BLOCKQUOTE

Contains text quoted from another source. The viewer may set the text apart by indenting or a prefix character.

Example:

<BLOCKQUOTE>
this is a block-quoted paragraph
</BLOCKQUOTE>

Result:

this is a block-quoted paragraph

XMP

XMP is obsolete but included for compatibility with older documents (LISTING is similar but not implemented). Like PRE, encloses a pre-formatted section of text which preserve spaces and line breaks. In addition, parsing of entities is suspended so you can include characters such as <, &, > directly without quoting.

For More Info

This document (in all its formats) is © 1995-2007. Steve Weyer, Greg Simon. All Rights Reserved Worldwide

Version 2.1. Last updated: Dec 2000