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Serialization Preferences

To configure the serialization options for the Author mode, open the Preferences dialog box and go to Editor > Edit modes > Author > Serialization.

The following options are available:

Format and indent

Use this option to specify what should be formatted and indented when you save a document (or switch from Author to Text mode). You can choose between the following two options:

Only the modified content
The Save operation only formats the nodes that were modified in the Author mode. The rest of the document preserves its original formatting.
Note: This option also applies to the DITA maps opened in the DITA Maps Manager.
The entire document

The Save operation applies the formatting to the entire document regardless of the nodes that were modified in Author mode.

Also apply the format and indent options that are set for Text mode
If this option is selected, the result of the Format and indent operation will be the same as when it is applied in Text editing mode. Thus, the content of the document is formatted by applying the Format and Indent rules from the Editor/Format and Editor/Format/XML preference pages. You can use the Format and indent options link to navigate to those options.
Compatibility with other tools
Use this option to control how line breaks are handled when a document is serialized. This will help to obtain better compatibility with other tools. You can choose one of the following:
  • None - Choose this option if compatibility with other tools can be ignored.
  • Do not break lines, do not indent - Choose this option to avoid breaking lines after element start or end tags and indenting will not be used.
    Note: New lines that are added by the user in elements where the @xml:space attribute is set to preserve (such as <pre> elements in HTML, or <codeblock> elements in DITA) are still inserted. Also, selecting this option automatically disables the Also apply the format and indent options that are set for Text mode option, since the formatting from Text mode does not take the CSS styles into account.
  • Break lines only after elements displayed as blocks, do not indent - Choose this option to instruct Oxygen XML Editor Eclipse plugin to insert new lines only after elements that have a CSS display property set to anything other than inline or none (for example, block, list-item, table, etc.) and indenting will not be used. When selecting this option, the formatting is dictated by the CSS.
    Note: New lines that are added by the user in elements where the @xml:space attribute is set to preserve (such as <pre> elements in HTML, or <codeblock> elements in DITA) are still inserted. Also, selecting this option automatically disables the Also apply the format and indent options that are set for Text mode option, since the formatting from Text mode does not take the CSS styles into account.