5.1.1  White-space Characters

If the paragraph element or any of its child elements contains white-space characters, they are collapsed. Leading white-space characters at the paragraph start as well as trailing white-space characters at the paragraph end are ignored. In detail, the following conversions take place:

The following [UNICODE] characters are normalized to a SPACE character:

�        HORIZONTAL TABULATION (0x0009)

�        CARRIAGE RETURN (0x000D)

�        LINE FEED (0x000A)

�        SPACE (0x0020)

In addition, these characters are ignored if the preceding character is a white-space character. The preceding character can be contained in the same element, in the parent element, or in the preceding sibling element, as long as it is contained within the same paragraph element and the element in which it is contained processes white-space characters as described above. White-space characters at the start or end of the paragraph are ignored, regardless whether they are contained in the paragraph element itself, or in a child element in which white-space characters are collapsed as described above.

These white-space processing rules shall enable authors to use white-space characters to improve the readability of the XML source of an OpenDocument document in the same way as they can use them in HTML.

White-space processing takes place within the following elements:

�        <text:p>

�        <text:h>

�        <text:span>

�        <text:a>

�        <text:ref-point>

�        <text:ref-point-start>

�        <text:ref-point-end>

�        <text:bookmark>

�        <text:bookmark-start>

�        <text:bookmark-end>

Note: In [XSL], white-space processing of a paragraph of text can be enabled by attaching an fo:white-space="collapse" attribute to the <fo:block> element that corresponds to the paragraph element.

 

, in other words they are processed in the same way that [HTML4] processes them.

        Space Character

In general, consecutive white-space characters in a paragraph are collapsed. For this reason, there is a special XML element used to represent the [UNICODE] character SPACE (0x0020).

This element uses an optional attribute called text:c to specify the number of SPACE characters that the element represents. A missing text:c attribute is interpreted as meaning a single SPACE character.

This element is required to represent the second and all following SPACE characters in a sequence of SPACE characters. It is not an error if the character preceding the element is not a white-space character, but it is good practice to use this element for the second and all following SPACE characters in a sequence. This way, an application recognizes a single space character without recognizing this element.

        Tab Character

The <text:tab> element represents the [UNICODE] tab character HORIZONTAL TABULATION (0x0009) in a heading or paragraph. A <text:tab> element reserves space from the current position up to the next tab-stop, as defined in the paragraph's style information.

To determine which tab-stop a tab character will advance to requires layout information. To make it easier for non-layout oriented processors to determine this information, applications may generate a text:tab-ref attribute as a hint that associates a tab character with a tab-stop in the current paragraph style. It contains the number of the tab-stop that the tab character refers to. The position 0 has a special meaning and signifies the start margin of the paragraph.

Note: The text:tab-ref attribute is only a hint to help non-layout oriented processors to determine the tab/tab-stop association. Layout oriented processors should determine the tab positions solely based on the style information.

        Line Breaks

The <text:line-break> element represents a line break in a heading or paragraph.

        Soft Page Break

The <text:soft-page-break> element represents a soft page break within a heading or paragraph.

See section 2.3.1:Use Soft Page BreaksUse Soft Page Breaks for details regarding soft page breaks.