16 Internals

16.1 Document structure

The formatted deplate document is made up of a pre-matter, a body, and a post-matter each of which is an array of arrays of strings.

• Pre-matter
  • Slots
    • Array of strings
• Body
  • Slots
    • Array of strings
• Post-matter
  • Slots
    • Array of strings

Using the docType option, you can determine into which section an element goes. Using the docSlot option, you can define the element’s position withing a section.

In multi-file output, pre-matter and post-matter are the same for all files. The actual body usually beginns, but this depends on the formatter, at position 90 of the pre-matter and ends at position 20 of the post-matter section. I.e. if you want to print some information in every file’s body, put it somewhere in the pre-matter after position 90 or in the post-matter before slot 20.

The default slot for normal text is 50 in the body section. If slot is greater than 50, the element will be moved to the end of the document. If it is smaller, it will be moved to the beginning. The utility of this feature for the user is limited. It can come handy, if you want to put LaTeX-code into the preamble or if you want to customize the output in some more advanced way.

The slots can also be addressed via names:

• Pre

  doc_def

  The document type definition

  doc_beg

  The beginning of the document

  head_beg

  The beginning of the document head

  javascript

  Javascript

  mod_packages

  Packages loaded by a module

  user_packages

  User-required packages

  mod_head

  Additional header statements added by a module

  user_head

  Additional header statements added by the user

  head

  Document header statements

  user_head

  Document header statements added by the user

  css

  Style definitions

  head_end

  The end of the document head

  body_beg

  The beginning of the body definition

• Body

  body

  The body (standard slot)

  footnotes

  Footnotes

• Post

  body_end

  The end of the body definition

  doc_end

  The end of the document

The names can come handy when selectively filling in content into a template.

Any element can be located at any position in the document. This can be done by adding the option “slot” to an element. The value of “slot” can be a name, a number, or a mix of both like in “css+1” or “body-1”.

In general, you shouldn’t address slots by their number. It’s quite likely that this option will soon disappear.