Word XML Schema tags

[Rick]

I have been creating templates using the XML schema tags. I have
noticed that the schema tags have two different visual appearances
however I can not find any documentation on what the visual
appearance‘s indicate.

There are times the schema tags insert into the template with the
complete open and close tag shown with no shading, the name of the tag
in both the open and close tag and with little left (in the open tag)
and right (in the close tag) triangle images

There are other times where the tags insert as shaded were only the
open tag has the name of the tag present and the close tag is not as
wide with no text or triangles inside

Both tag types yield the same information if I hover the mouse pointer
over them.

Is there any documentation available?

 

[Cindy M -WordMVP-]

Hi Rick,

I have been creating templates using the XML schema tags. I have
noticed that the schema tags have two different visual appearances
however I can not find any documentation on what the visual
appearance‘s indicate.

OK, I've gotten an answer that makes sense to me. See if it does to
you, considering the structure of your document (which we don't
know, of course):

--
There are two types of tags; tags that encompass objects and inline
tags. (not sure if there are any "approved" terms for these.

Most of the time, tags surround objects such as tables, cells,
paragraphs, etc. If a tag is surrounding an object, then you get the
"clear" opening and closing tags.

If the tag is encompassing something less then an object, such as
text in a paragraph or text in a cell, then you get the shaded tags.

The reason there is a difference is to visually differentiate
between tags that could look very similar. For example, you could
have a tag encompass a table cell. That would be a "clear" tag. Or,
you could have a tag encompass the text in a cell, but not the cell
itself. That would be an inline tag. Both tags could visually be in
the same location.

For example, the XML for a tab surrounding a table cell could look
like this (bold is what the tag would include):

<table>

<row>

<cell>

<Text inside the cell>

</cell>

</row>

</table>

An inline tag would look like this in XML:

<table>

<row>

<cell>

<tag><Text inside the cell></tag>

</cell>

</row>

</table>

In Word’s UI, the position of the tag would look the same since Word
doesn’t have a way to layout stuff between table cells. A lot of
this has to do with how to get the tags in the document without
messing up the layout. Since we are limited in how we display the
tags, we have two different ways the tags can look so that you can
differentiate between inline tags and tags around larger objects.

From the user’s standpoint, this doesn’t make a difference in most
cases. If you are a developer who is creating complex XML, then
these distinctions may or may not be important.
---

Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Sep 30
2003)
http://www.word.mvps.org

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