When you create a Binder — i.e., a collection of individual subdocuments — the question arises how each subdocument should be shown when there are discrepancies between the styling settings of the Binder and the styling settings of one or more subdocuments.
The complexity described below is once again a hint that you should try to avoid, as much as possible, to embed custom styling settings into subdocuments. Ideally, neither the Binder nor any of the subdocuments contains any styling information, so that all styling information emanates from the customer’s or user’s individual settings.
ClauseBase assumes that the subdocuments of a Binder will generally have to look similar, and therefore takes the following approach:
- Only page-related styling settings can be different between subdocuments. This, for example, allows you to have subdocuments that have different headers, footers or numbers of columns.
- For those page-related styling settings, the settings of the Binder will serve as the starting point for each subdocument, and will be complemented by the specific page-settings of each subdocument.
- Note that the document-title is not considered part of the page-related styling settings, even though its setting is listed under “page”.
- All other styling settings (including the document title) will be identical across all individual subdocuments of a Binder.To determine which styling setting will take precedence, the following rules are used:
- the Binder’s setting for a specific styling element will always take precedence
- if the Binder does not contain a setting for this styling element, the main subdocument’s setting will be taken
- if neither the Binder nor the main subdocument contains a setting for the styling element, the default styling for the user (perhaps determined by central customer or group styling settings) will be used.
Example
- The Binder contains a setting for the base left spacing (10 mm) and for the center header (“dummy center binder heading”).
- The main subdocument contains a setting for the base left spacing (20mm), font name (Courier) and color (green), as well as a left header setting (“dummy main left heading”) and center heading (“main subdocument center heading”).
- The second subdocument contains a setting for the base font name (Impact), as well as a left header setting (“dummy second left heading”). Its number of columns in the page-settings is set to 3, and its page orientation is landscape.
- The third subdocument contains a setting for the base font size (12pt), as well as a left header setting (“dummy third left heading”).
- No customer or group styling settings apply.
This will result in the following document:
- Base left spacing: 10mm (the Binder takes precedence over the main subdocument’s 20mm left spacing).
- The base font used everywhere will be Courier: this is the value taken from the main subdocument (font Impact specified in the second subdocument is ignored).
- The color of the base font will be green (taken from the main subdocument, and not overridden by any of the other subdocuments).
- The base font size will be 10pt, i.e. the system default size, because neither the Binder nor the main subdocuments specify the font size. Note that the 12pt size of the third subdocument is ignored.
- Center heading: “dummy center binder heading” (taken from the Binder) for the second and third subdocument, because they do not contain a center heading themselves. The center heading for the main subdocument will be “main subdocument center heading”.
- The left header setting will be different for each subdocument, because this is a setting that can be different between subdocuments.
- The number of columns will be one (default) for the main subdocument and third subdocument, but three for the second subdocument.
- The page orientation will be portrait for the main subdocument and third subdocument, but landscape for the second subdocument.
- All settings that are not mentioned, will be taken from a combination of the customer’s setting, group settings, user settings, etc.