The "Policy Manual" for the AscToHTM conversion utility

This documentation can be downloaded as part of the documentation set in .zip format

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5 Detailed policy descriptions

Add <P> inside list usage code

Possible values
: 0,1,2 or 3
Default value
: 1
Policy scope
: Fixed output policy
Policy file section
: Merrill
Menu location
: n/a
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a

Controls the use of the <P> tag inside lists (bullets etc.) The use of the <P> tag affects the vertical white space displayed, and the addressing of text inside lists by CSS rules

n=0 Use <P> on all paragraphs inside a list item

n=1 Use <P> on all bar first paragraph

n=2 Use <P> only on first paragraph

n=3 Don't use <P> on any paragraphs

Note, options "0" and "2" won't work if <DL> markup is being used for the list (see "List Markup Code")


Active Link Colour

Possible values
: HTML colours
Default value
: ""
Policy scope
: Fixed output policy
Policy file section
: Added HTML
Menu location
: Output | Document colours
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a

Identifies the colour of "active" hyperlinks, that is the colour of the hyperlink just as it is being selected. This value is a HTML colour that is used to set the ALINK attribute of the <BODY> tag.

See also "Unvisited Link Colour", "Visited Link Colour"


Add <BR> to lines with URLs

Possible values
: Yes/No
Default value
: No
Policy scope
: Dynamic output policy
Policy file section
: Hyperlinks
Menu location
: Output | Hyperlinks
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a


Indicates that lines that are detected as having URLs in them should have <BR> markup added to the end. This is useful in documents that have a list of URLs, one per line, as the URLs usually make the lines quite long (avoiding short line detection), and you would want to preserve the line structure.

However, this is less useful where URLs occur in the middle of a paragraph of text, as it inserts a <BR>, and breaks the paragraph.

Prior to V3.0 this was default behaviour, but now it is switched off by default.

In later versions we may attempt to make this policy auto-detected.












Add contents list

Possible values
: Yes/No
Default value
: No
Policy scope
: Fixed output policy
Policy file section
: Contents
Menu location
: Output | Contents List
Command line option
: /CONTENTS
Related directives
: n/a


Specifies that AscToHTM should generate a contents list or index to match all the section heading that it marks up. This contents list will consist of hyperlinks to take you to the corresponding section and HTML file.

The placement of the contents list depends on

Whenever you elect to have a contents list generated, and lines perceived by AscToHTM as being part of a contents list in the original document will be discarded.

You can enable this option from the command line by using the /CONTENTS qualifier (see "Changing policies by using command line options")

The default location for the contents list

If you are simply generating a single HTML page, then any contents list will be placed at the top of the page.

If you decide to split your HTML into several files, then the contents list is placed at the bottom of first page. Any text before the first section in your document will be placed before the contents list in this first page.

Placing the contents list in separate file

If you want, you can chose to place the contents list in a separate file. If you choose this option a "Tables of Contents" link will be added to the top of your file. See "Generate external contents file"

Changing the contents list placement in the HTML

From V3.2 onwards you can place a contents list wherever you want by inserting a $_$_CONTENTS_LIST directive at the desired location (see Changing policies by using preprocessor directives). When these tags are detected no default contents list is created.



Add mail headers to contents list

Possible values
: Yes/No
Default value
: Yes
Policy scope
: Static output policy
Policy file section
: Contents
Menu location
: n/a
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a


Specifies whether or not mail headers should be included in any generated contents list. For a mail digest this should be yes, but for larger documents with only a couple of mail headers the answer may be no.

Add navigation bar

Possible values
: Yes/No
Default value
: Yes (when splitting HTML into many files)
Policy scope
: Fixed output policy
Policy file section
: File generation
Menu location
: Output | File generation
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a


This policy is only relevant if you have elected to split your document into a number of smaller HTML files (see "split level")

In such cases this policy allows you have a navigation bar inserted at the foot of each HTML page, before any standard footer is added.

The navigation bar consists of

This policy is enabled by default whenever file splitting is selected.


Allow automatic centring

Possible values
: Yes/No
Default value
: No
Policy scope
: Dynamic output policy
Policy file section
: Style
Menu location
: Output | Style
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a


Indicates that automatic detection of centred text should be attempted. The indentation and length of each line is compared to the nominal page width within a specified tolerance (see "page width" and "Automatic centring tolerance")

If the line appears centred (and meets a few other conditions) then it will be rendered centred in the output.

This option is normally left switched off, as it is still too prone to give errors (i.e. centring lines that shouldn't be). This has been improved in later versions, but is still not robust enough to be relied upon.


Allow definitions inside PRE

Possible values
: Yes/No
Default value
: Yes
Policy scope
: Dynamic output policy
Policy file section
: Style
Menu location
: Output | Preprocessor
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a


Indicates whether or not AscToHTM should look for definition terms inside a pre-formatted section of text. Only really relevant if the "Highlight definition text" policy is enabled.

Sometimes lists of definitions appear like pre-formatted text, especially if the definitions are aligned on the right.




Attempt TABLE generation

Possible values
: Yes/No
Default value
: Yes
Policy scope
: Dynamic output policy
Policy file section
: Tables
Menu location
: Output | Table generation
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a


Indicates that AscToHTM should attempt automatic table generation on any apparently pre-formatted text it encounters. Text that appears pre-formatted to AsctoHTM can turn out to be a number of different things

AscToHTM will attempt to distinguish between these, but it's a blank art. Table generation may not be appropriate for the document being converted, or alternatively the table generated may be so flawed that you'd prefer to use <PRE>...</PRE> markup, in which case you can use this policy to switch that feature off.

When switched off AscToHTM will still look for pre-formatted text, but will default to outputting it in <PRE> ... </PRE> markup as it did prior to v2.2.


Automatic centring tolerance

Possible values
: number of characters 0,1,2...
Default value
: 2
Policy scope
: Dynamic output policy
Policy file section
: Style
Menu location
: Output | Style
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a


Specifies the tolerance used (expressed as a number of characters offset) when detecting centred text.

Given that the detection of centred text depends on its position relative to the calculated page width, which itself may not be accurate, increasing this value may give better results. Equally, it may wrongly detect more text as centred.

The default value is 2, which is also used as a minimum regardless of the value you enter.

See also "Allow automatic centring".



Background Colour

Possible values
: HTML colours
Default value
: ""
Policy scope
: Fixed output policy
Policy file section
: Added HTML
Menu location
: Output | Document colours
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a


Identifies the background colour of the HTML page(s) created. This value is a HTML colour that is used to set the BGCOLOR attribute of the <BODY> tag. If omitted, AscToHTM defaults to a white background (I find Gray too dull)


Background Image

Possible values
: URL of image file (e.g. a .jpg or .gif)
Default value
: ""
Policy scope
: Fixed output policy
Policy file section
: Added HTML
Menu location
: Output | Title, description etc.
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a


Identifies the URL of any image to be placed in the BACKGROUND attribute of the <BODY> tag.




Break up long HTML lines

Possible values
: Yes/No
Default value
: Yes
Policy scope
: Dynamic output policy
Policy file section
: File generation
Menu location
: Output | File generation
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a


Specifies that long HTML lines should be broken into smaller ones. This attempts to make the HTML more readable, should you need to edit it afterwards.

However, there is the possibility that the insertion of newline characters into the output could affect how the HTML is displayed. This is because most of the browsers have bugs in their parsing of newlines. These problems are most pronounced when using non-standard (12pt) font sizes.

If you experience such problems, try disabling this policy.


Bullet char

Possible values
: '<character>'. One policy line per character
Default value
: '*'
Policy scope
: Fixed analysis policy
Policy file section
: Bullets
Menu location
: Analysis | Bullets
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a


This policy will probably be replaced in future versions

This species a character that can occur at the start of a line to represent a bullet point. Special attention is paid to '-' and 'o' characters, but any character will do.

The program should detect such characters (e.g. special character codes for bullets that are generated when saving from Word etc.)

Use one line for each bullet char.






Colour data rows

Possible values
: Yes/No
Default value
: No
Policy scope
: Dynamic output policy
Policy file section
: Tables
Menu location
: Output | Table generation
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a


Indicates that where AscToHTM detects and generates HTML tables, the data rows (as opposed to the Header rows) should be alternatively be coloured differently. This helps highlight the different rows, especially if the table has no border.

See also "Default TABLE odd row colour" and "Default TABLE even row colour"





Contents style code

Possible values
: 0, 1
Default value
: 0
Policy scope
: Dynamic output policy
Policy file section
: Contents
Menu location
: n/a
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a


Specifies a "style" to be applied to the contents list. There aren't too many options at present.

Possible values are

0
AscToHTM "Classic". Contents line is bolded
1
As above, but not bolded.


Convert TABLE X-refs to links

Possible values
: Yes/No
Default value
: No
Policy scope
: Dynamic output policy
Policy file section
: Tables
Menu location
: Output | Table generation
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: TABLE_CONVERT_XREFS


Indicates whether or not cross-references to numbered sections should be converted into hyperlinks to those sections. Unfortunately, the program cannot differentiate between section references and ordinary numbers in the source text (unless you place the number inside a TEXT in-line tag). This leads to occasional errors, for example when software version numbers are discussed in a document.

This problem proved to be particularly acute inside tables of numbers. For that reason this policy was introduced to allow the conversion of section numbers to hyperlinks inside a TABLE to be switched off independently from the rest of the document.

By default this policy is disabled. Users should only switch this behaviour on if they have a table of section numbers (such an index or contents list)


Create FTP links

Possible values
: Yes/No
Default value
: Yes
Policy scope
: Dynamic output policy
Policy file section
: Hyperlinks
Menu location
: Output | Hyperlinks
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a


This indicates that probable FTP references such as ftp.microsoft.com should be converted into active hyperlinks. Sometimes text is assumed to be an ftp link when it isn't. If you find that happening, use this policy to prevent the conversion.


Create Gopher links

Possible values
: Yes/No
Default value
: Yes
Policy scope
: Dynamic output policy
Policy file section
: Hyperlinks
Menu location
: Output | Hyperlinks
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a


This indicates that probable gopher references should be converted into active hyperlinks.



Create NEWS links

Possible values
: Yes/No
Default value
: Yes
Policy scope
: Dynamic output policy
Policy file section
: Hyperlinks
Menu location
: Output | Hyperlinks
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a


This indicates that probable USENET newsgroup references such as alt.games.mornington.cresent (sic) are to be converted into active hyperlinks.

Create a log file

Possible values
: Yes/No
Default value
: No
Policy scope
: Fixed output policy
Policy file section
: n/a
Menu location
: Output | File Generation
Command line option
: /LOG=<filespec>
Related directives
: n/a


Specifies that a .log file should be created. This will contains copies of all the messages output during conversion, together with some that may have been suppressed.

See also "Output log filename"




Create hyperlinks

Possible values
: Yes/No
Default value
: Yes
Policy scope
: Dynamic output policy
Policy file section
: Hyperlinks
Menu location
: Output | Hyperlinks
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a


This indicates that all candidate http, www and ftp URLs should be converted into active hyperlinks.


Create mailto links

Possible values
: Yes/No
Default value
: Yes
Policy scope
: Dynamic output policy
Policy file section
: Hyperlinks
Menu location
: Output | Hyperlinks
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a


This indicates that all candidate email addresses such as info@jafsoft.com are to be converted into active mailto hyperlinks.


Cross-refs at level

Possible values
: Headings level, 0,1,2..
Default value
: 2
Policy scope
: Dynamic output policy
Policy file section
: Hyperlinks
Menu location
: Output | Hyperlinks
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a


For documents with numbered section headings, this indicates the section level at which and above which all cross-references are to be converted to hyperlinks to the sections themselves.

For example a value of 2 means all n.n, n.n.n etc references are converted. A value of "1" might seem desirable, but is liable to give many false references. This is because the error rate becomes too high on single numbers/letters or roman numerals.

This may be refined in later releases.

A value of "0" means "don't add hyperlinks to cross-references".

See also "Expect numbered headings".


DOS filename root

Possible values
: Text string (up to 5 characters)
Default value
: ""
Policy scope
: Fixed output policy
Policy file section
: File generation
Menu location
: Output | File generation
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a


Where DOS filenames are used this allows you to specify an up-to-5 character root to which any section numbers will be appended (see "Split level").

If splitting a document at 2 levels we normally recommend a 3-character filename root.

Thus MYDOC.TXT given a root of MYD would produce MYD.HTM, MTD_1.HTM MYD_1_1.HTM etc... which are all less than 8 characters and thus maintain some readability.

If no root were specified, MYDOC_1_1.HTM would be renamed to MYDnnnnn.HTM where "nnnnn" would be a generated 5-digit code.

See "Use DOS Filenames"


Default TABLE border colour

Possible values
: HTML colours
Default value
: ""
Policy scope
: Dynamic output policy
Policy file section
: Tables
Menu location
: Output | Table generation
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: TABLE_BORDERCOLOR


This tells AscToHTM what colour to use for the table border. Not all browsers support this.


Default TABLE border size

Possible values
: A size (in pixels)
Default value
: 0
Policy scope
: Dynamic output policy
Policy file section
: Tables
Menu location
: Output | Table generation
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: TABLE_BORDER


This policy sets the default value for the <TABLE> BORDER attribute. A value of 0 means "no border".


Default TABLE caption

Possible values
: Text string
Default value
: ""
Policy scope
: Dynamic output policy
Policy file section
: Tables
Menu location
: n/a
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: TABLE_CAPTION


Specifies the caption to be applied to generated tables. However, since this will be applied to all generated tables, this is less useful that placing individual TABLE_CAPTION directives in your source text.


Default TABLE cell alignment

Possible values
: L[eft],R[ight],C[enter],J[ustified]
Default value
: "(none)" - meaning auto-detect.
Policy scope
: Dynamic output policy
Policy file section
: Tables
Menu location
: Output | Table generation
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: TABLE_CELL_ALIGN


Specifies the default cell-alignment to be applied to table cells. Normally the program will try to auto-detect a suitable cell alignment on a column by column, cel by cell basis.

You can use this to (rather crudely) set all cells to be aligned the same way if the results are not to your taste.


Default TABLE cell padding

Possible values
: A size (in pixels)
Default value
: 2
Policy scope
: Dynamic output policy
Policy file section
: Tables
Menu location
: Output | Table generation
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: TABLE_CELLPADDING


This tells AscToHTM what value to use for the TABLE CELLPADDING attribute of the table. Browsers that support this will add space inside each cell.

A value of "0" means "none".


Default TABLE cell spacing

Possible values
: A size (in pixels)
Default value
: 2
Policy scope
: Dynamic output policy
Policy file section
: Tables
Menu location
: Output | Table generation
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: TABLE_CELLSPACING


This tells AscToHTM what value to use for the CELLSPACING attribute of the table. Browsers that support this will add space between each cell.

A value of "0" means "none".


Default TABLE colour

Possible values
: HTML colours
Default value
: ""
Policy scope
: Dynamic output policy
Policy file section
: Tables
Menu location
: Output | Table generation
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: TABLE_BGCOLOR


This tells AscToHTM what colour to use for the background to each cell. Not all browsers support this.

If omitted the table with take on the background colour of the whole page.

See also "Background Colour".


Default TABLE even row colour

Possible values
: HTML colours
Default value
: "E0F0E0"
Policy scope
: Dynamic output policy
Policy file section
: Tables
Menu location
: Output | Table generation
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: TABLE_EVEN_ROW_COLOUR


When AscToHTM is to colour odd and even rows in the tables that it generates different colours (see "Colour data rows"), this identifies the colour of the even numbered rows.

See also "Default TABLE odd row colour".


Default TABLE header cols

Possible values
: Number of columns 0,1...
Default value
: 0
Policy scope
: Dynamic analysis policy
Policy file section
: Tables
Menu location
: Output | Table generation
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: TABLE_HEADER_COLS


This tells AscToHTM how many columns in each table should be highlighted as "header" columns using <B> ... </B> markup inside the table cells.

Normally this is 0.


Default TABLE header rows

Possible values
: Number of rows 0,1....
Default value
: 0
Policy scope
: Dynamic analysis policy
Policy file section
: Tables
Menu location
: Output | Table generation
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: TABLE_HEADER_ROWS


This policy tells AscToHTM how many lines should be treated as header lines and placed in <TH> .. </TH> markup.

AscToHTM will treat a small number of lines of text above a line as header automatically, so you only need this if that doesn't work.

If set, this value will apply to all tables.


Default TABLE odd row colour

Possible values
: HTML colours
Default value
: "F0F0F0"
Policy scope
: Dynamic output policy
Policy file section
: Tables
Menu location
: Output | Table generation
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: TABLE_ODD_ROW_COLOUR


When AscToHTM is to colour odd and even rows in the tables that it generates different colours (see "Colour data rows"), this identifies the colour of the odd numbered rows.

See also "Default TABLE even row colour".


Default TABLE width

Possible values
: Table width in pixels or as a % of screen width
Default value
: ""
Policy scope
: Dynamic output policy
Policy file section
: Tables
Menu location
: Output | Table generation
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: TABLE_WIDTH


This tells AscToHTM what value to use for the WIDTH attribute of the table.

The WIDTH is specified either as a number (of pixels) or as a percentage (of screen width). Thus "400" and "75%" are both valid values (without the quotes)

Note:
If you use this policy, all your tables will be the same width. If you wish to switch it on for individual tables, place $_$_TABLE_WIDTH commands (see "Changing policies by using preprocessor directives") in your source file instead.

Definition char

Possible values
: One line per character in the form 'char' weak/strong}
Default value
: '-' (weak)
Policy scope
: Fixed analysis policy
Policy file section
: Analysis
Menu location
: Analysis | Analysis
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a


This policy will probably be replaced in future versions

This specifies the characters used to detect "definitions". A definition line is a single line that appears to be defining something. Usually this is a line with either a colon (:) or an equals sign (=) in it. For example

        IMHO = In my humble opinion
        Address : Somewhere over the rainbow.

The character can be marked as "Strong" or "weak". Strong means such characters always signal a definition. Weak means they only sometimes do this, depending on the position relative to the Page Width.

The user interface presents this more cleanly than the text in the policy file does, and the latter may be changed in later versions.






Directory Description

Possible values
: Text string
Default value
: ""
Policy scope
: Fixed output policy
Policy file section
: Directory
Menu location
: Output | Directory List
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a


When you have elected to create a directory file (see "Make Directory"), this indicates the description of your document that is added to a META tag inserted into the <HEAD> section of the Directory page as follows :-

<META NAME="description" CONTENT="your description">

This tag is often used by search engines (e.g. AltaVista) as a brief description of the contents of your page. If omitted the first few lines may be shown instead, which is often less satisfactory.



Directory Keywords

Possible values
: Comma-separated list of keywords
Default value
: ""
Policy scope
: Fixed output policy
Policy file section
: Directory
Menu location
: Output | Directory List
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a


When you have elected to create a directory file (see "Make Directory"), this allows you to specify keywords that are added to a META tag inserted into the <HEAD> section of the Directory page as follows :-

<META NAME="keywords" CONTENT="your list or keywords">

This tag is often used by search engines when indexing your HTML page. You should add here any relevant keywords possibly not contained in the text itself.


Directory Script file

Possible values
: Local file containing JavaScript fragment you want embedding
Default value
: ""
Policy scope
: Fixed output policy
Policy file section
: Directory
Menu location
: Output | Directory List
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a

When you have elected to create a directory file (see "Make Directory"), this identifies the name of a text include file to be transcribed into the <HEAD> ... </HEAD> portion of the generated HTML page.

This allows you to place JavaScript in your pages (though you'll be a little limited as to what it can act on).

If omitted, this will default to any script file used in the rest of the HTML pages as set by the "HTML Script file" policy.


Directory Title

Possible values
: Text string
Default value
: ""
Policy scope
: Fixed output policy
Policy file section
: Directory
Menu location
: Output | Directory List
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a

When you have elected to create a directory file (see "Make Directory"), this specifies the text to be used as the HTML title of the Directory page.



Directory filename

Possible values
: Local file to be created with directory contents
Default value
: ""
Policy scope
: Fixed output policy
Policy file section
: Directory
Menu location
: Output | Directory List
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a

When you have elected to create a directory file (see "Make Directory"), this specifies the name of the Directory page html file to be created.

If omitted, this will default to "dirindex.html" in the output directory. Prior to V3.2 this used to be "index.html", but people complained when that overwrote their existing index.html files.


Directory footer file

Possible values
: Local file containing HTML code to be used as footer
Default value
: ""
Policy scope
: Fixed output policy
Policy file section
: Directory
Menu location
: Output | Directory List
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a


When you have elected to create a directory file (see "Make Directory"), this identifies the name of a text include file to be transcribed into the HTML file at the bottom of the <BODY> ... </BODY> portion of the generated HTML page.

This can be used to add "return to home page" links, and contact addresses to your HTML pages.

If omitted, this will default to any header file used in the rest of the HTML pages as set by the "HTML header file" policy.


Directory header file

Possible values
: Local file containing HTML code to be used as header
Default value
: "dirindex.html"
Policy scope
: Fixed output policy
Policy file section
: Directory
Menu location
: Output | Directory List
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a


When you have elected to create a directory file (see "Make Directory"), this identifies the name of a text include file to be transcribed into the HTML file at the top of the <BODY> ... </BODY> portion of the Directory page.

If omitted, this will default to any header file used in the rest of the HTML pages as set by the "HTML header file" policy.


Directory return hyperlink text

Possible values
: Text string
Default value
: "Directory"
Policy scope
: Dynamic output policy
Policy file section
: Directory
Menu location
: Output | Directory List
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a

When you have elected to create a directory file (see "Make Directory"), this specifies the text to be shown on the hyperlink linking each HTML page back to the Directory page.

The default value is "Directory"

Display messages

Possible values
: Yes/No
Default value
: Yes
Policy scope
: Dynamic output policy
Policy file section
: n/a
Menu location
: n/a
Command line option
: /SILENT
Related directives
: n/a


Specifies that all display and informational messages should be suppressed. If selected, you will get no messages displayed at all, although these can still be directed to a .log file (e.g. by using the /LOG command qualifier)

This policy is equivalent to the /SILENT command qualifier.






Document Description

Possible values
: Text string
Default value
: ""
Policy scope
: Fixed output policy
Policy file section
: Added HTML
Menu location
: Output | Title, description etc.
or
Output | Document Details
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: DESCRIPTION


This policy allows you to specify a description of your document that is added to a META tag inserted into the <HEAD> section of the output page(s) as follows :-

<META NAME="description" CONTENT="your description">

This tag is often used by search engines (e.g. AltaVista) as a brief description of the contents of your page. If omitted the first few lines may be shown instead, which is often less satisfactory.

Any DESCRIPTION pre-processor command(s) present in the source document will override this policy/

In a RTF conversion the description will be placed in the document details header.


Document Keywords

Possible values
: Comma-separated list of keywords and phrases
Default value
: ""
Policy scope
: Fixed output policy
Policy file section
: Added HTML
Menu location
: Output | Title, description etc.
or
Output | Document Details
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: KEYWORDS


This policy allows you to specify keywords that are added to a META tag inserted into the <HEAD> section of the output HTML page(s) as follows :-

<META NAME="keywords" CONTENT="your list or keywords">

This tag is often used by search engines when indexing your HTML page. You should add here any relevant keywords possibly not contained in the text itself.

Any KEYWORDS pre-processor command(s) present in the source file will override this policy.

In an RTF conversion this will be placed in the document details header.




Document Style Sheet

Possible values
: URL of a .CSS file to be used as the external style sheet
Default value
: ""
Policy scope
: Fixed output policy
Policy file section
: Style
Menu location
: Output | CSS
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: STYLE_SHEET


This specifies the URL of a style sheet file, usually with a .css extension. Style sheet files are a new HTML feature that allow you specify fonts and colours to be applied to your document. By placing this information in a separate file, the same style can be applied to

The resulting HTML is inserted into the <HEAD> section of the output page(s) as follows :-

<LINK REL="STYLESHEET" HREF="URL" TYPE="text/css">




Document Title

Possible values
: Text string
Default value
: ""
Policy scope
: Fixed output policy
Policy file section
: Added HTML
Menu location
: Output | Title, description etc.
or
Output | Document Details
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: TITLE


Identifies the text to be placed in the <TITLE> ... </TITLE> markup in the document header.

If omitted, the default title will be "Converted from <filename>". We did consider defaulting to the first line of text, but that rarely works.

However you can get this effect by using either of the "Use first heading as title" or "Use first line as title" policies.

The title can also be specified via the TITLE preprocessor command placed in the source document, which will override this policy when present.

If order the preference for the title is

Error reporting level

Possible values
: 1 (not many messages) - 10 (lots of messages)
Default value
: 5
Policy scope
: Dynamic output policy
Policy file section
: Messages
Menu location
: Settings | Diagnostic messages
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a


Specifies the level of error reporting you want during the conversion. AscToHTM can generate a variety of messages of varying severity to inform you of the decisions it's made. These messages can be useful in explaining why a conversion has gone wrong, but are less interesting at other times.

Whilst all of these messages are copied into any diagnostic .lis files created (see "Generate diagnostics files") regardless of severity, you can use this policy to choose the level of reporting you want to see on your screen.

The value is nominally in the range 1-10 with a value of 1 showing few messages and a value of 10 showing almost all messages. The default value is 5.


Expect Capitalised Headings

Possible values
: Yes/No
Default value
: Yes
Policy scope
: Dynamic analysis policy
Policy file section
: Headings
Menu location
: Analysis | Headings
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a


Indicates whether or not a line that is wholly capitalised should be regarded as a section heading. Capitalised headings will normally only be used if there do not seem to be any numbered or underlined headings.

See also "Expect numbered headings" and "Expect underlined headings".


Expect Contents List

Possible values
: Yes/No
Default value
: Yes
Policy scope
: Dynamic analysis policy
Policy file section
: Contents
Menu location
: Output | Contents List
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: BEGIN_CONTENTS...END_CONTENTS


Indicates whether or not the source file contains an existing contents list.

This should be detected automatically, but sometimes the analysis fails in which case you should either set this manually, or mark up the contents list in the source file using using the BEGIN_CONTENTS ... END_CONTENTS pre-processor commands.

See also "Add contents list"


Expect Numbered Headings

Possible values
: Yes/No
Default value
: Yes
Policy scope
: Dynamic analysis policy
Policy file section
: Headings
Menu location
: Analysis | Headings
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a


Indicates whether or not lines that begin with section numbers should be regarded as section headings. Checks will be made to ensure that numbers are in a valid sequence, occur at the correct indentation, and are properly placed in the file. This reduces the error rate that would occur by assuming that every line beginning with a number is a heading.


See also "Expect capitalised headings" and "Expect underlined headings".


Expect Numbered bullets

Possible values
: Yes/No
Default value
: Yes
Policy scope
: Dynamic analysis policy
Policy file section
: Bullets
Menu location
: Analysis | Bullets
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a


Indicates that numerical bullets are expected (but you probably guessed that). Normally detected during analysis. Numbered bullets are often just numbered lists in the source file.

Sometimes numbered bullets and numbered headings get confused and it is necessary to enable one and disable the other.

See also "Expect numbered headings", "Expect alphabetic bullets" and "Expect roman numeral bullets"



Expect Roman Numeral bullets

Possible values
: Yes/No
Default value
: Yes
Policy scope
: Dynamic analysis policy
Policy file section
: Bullets
Menu location
: Analysis | Bullets
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a


Indicates that roman numerals bullets/lists are to be expected. The program supports both upper and lower case variants.

See also "Expect alphabetic bullets" and "Expect numbered bullets"



Expect Second Word Headings

Possible values
: Yes/No (but don't use this)
Default value
: No
Policy scope
: Dynamic analysis policy
Policy file section
: Headings
Menu location
: Analysis | Headings
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a


reserved, and liable to be removed


Expect Underlined Headings

Possible values
: Yes/No
Default value
: Yes
Policy scope
: Dynamic analysis policy
Policy file section
: Headings
Menu location
: Analysis | Headings
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a

Indicates whether or not a line that is underlined should be regarded as a section heading.

A line is deemed to be "underlined" if the next line in the source file consists solely of "line" characters like "-_+=~", and is a similar length to the previous line. If the lengths are not similar, then such a line will be treated as a line in its own right, becoming a <HR> in HTML.

See also "Expect numbered headings" and "Expect capitalised headings".


Expect alphabetic bullets

Possible values
: Yes/No
Default value
: Yes
Policy scope
: Dynamic analysis policy
Policy file section
: Bullets
Menu location
: Analysis | Bullets
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a


Indicates that alphabetic bullets/lists are expected. The program will recognises (and distinguishes between) upper and lower case variants.

Sometimes lines that begin with a single letter are wrongly interpreted as an alphabetic bullet point, especially if it's followed by a punctuation character. In such cases you can either disable this policy, or edit your source code so that the single letter no longer appears at the start of a line.

See also "Expect numbered bullets" and "Expect roman numeral bullets"


Expect blank lines between paras

Possible values
: Yes/No
Default value
: Yes
Policy scope
: Dynamic analysis policy
Policy file section
: Analysis
Menu location
: Analysis | General layout
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a


Indicates that paragraphs are expected to have blank lines before them. Where this isn't true (e.g. on a text file dumped from Word) different paragraph detection algorithms have to be applied, which tend to be more error prone.


Expect code samples

Possible values
: Yes/No
Default value
: No
Policy scope
: Dynamic analysis policy
Policy file section
: Analysis
Menu location
: Analysis | File Structure
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: BEGIN_CODE ... END_CODE


Indicates that the document is liable to contain samples of program code. The program will attempt to detect such code fragments, and preserve their layout so that the code remains comprehensible, however this process can be flawed, and often code samples are rendered as ordinary text.

Where the program fails to detect the full extent of your code samples, you can add the BEGIN_CODE ... END_CODE pre-processor commands before and after the sample in your source document.

You can choose how code fragments are marked up by using the "Use <CODE>..</CODE> markup" policy, although this is not generally suitable for multi-line samples.


Expect sparse tables

Possible values
: Yes/No
Default value
: No
Policy scope
: Dynamic analysis policy
Policy file section
: Tables
Menu location
: Analysis | Table Analysis
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: TABLE_MAY_BE_SPARSE


Indicates that tables within the source document may be sparse, that is they may contain a large number of "empty" cells. This fact will then be used to adjust the analysis of any tables detected.

For example, by default columns which appear to have little or no data in them are usually eliminated by merging them with their more populated neighbours.

If you set this policy, this process is relaxed, meaning that you will get more, emptier, columns rather than fewer, more filled ones.

This policy can be toggled for individual tables via the pre-processor command TABLE_MAY_BE_SPARSE placed between BEGIN_TABLE ... END_TABLE commands placed before and after the table.


External contents list filename

Possible values
: Local file to receive any external contents list
Default value
: ""
Policy scope
: Fixed output policy
Policy file section
: Contents
Menu location
: Output | Contents List
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a


When you select to Generate external contents file, this is the name of the external content file generated by the program.

By default the file will be called contents_<filename>.html.

The contents file should be in the same directory as the created HTML files.


First Section Number

Possible values
: 1,2,3... but best left alone
Default value
: 1
Policy scope
: Dynamic analysis policy
Policy file section
: Headings
Menu location
: Analysis | Headings
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a


Indicates the chapter number of the first numbered section in a file containing numbered sections (see "Expect numbered headings").

Normally this starts at 0 or 1, but if it starts higher, then the program will reject headers as being out of sequence, and fail to detect to presence or absence of contents lists correctly.

Only for the advanced/foolhardy user.


First line indentation (in blocks)

Possible values
: Size in "blocks" of indent (aka tab positions)
Default value
: 0
Policy scope
: Dynamic output policy
Policy file section
: RTF
Menu location
: n/a
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a


Specifies the size in tab positions of the indentation of the first line of a paragraph with respect tho the left margin of the paragraph.

This policy was originally intended for use in RTF where such styling is commoner, but is now applied to HTML generation as well.


Generate diagnostics files

Possible values
: Yes/No
Default value
: No
Policy scope
: Fixed output policy
Policy file section
: n/a
Menu location
: Output | File generation
Command line option
: /LIST and /DEBUG
Related directives
: n/a


This policy specifies whether or not diagnostics files should be produced. This has exactly the same effect as the /DEBUG qualifier has in command line versions.

The files created are:-

This file gives the best explanation of how the conversion proceeded.

Generate external contents file

Possible values
: Yes/No
Default value
: No
Policy scope
: Fixed output policy
Policy file section
: Contents
Menu location
: Output | Contents list
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a


Specifies whether any generated contents list should be placed in a separate file, as opposed to at the top of the output file.

This option is not always possible, specifically when an existing contents list is being used, or when the source is being split into many files. In such cases it will be ignored.

See also "External contents list filename".



HTML Script file

Possible values
: Local file containing JavaScript fragment you want embedding
Default value
: ""
Policy scope
: Fixed output policy
Policy file section
: Added HTML
Menu location
: Output | Title, description etc.
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a


Identifies the name of a text include file to be transcribed into the <HEAD> ... </HEAD> portion of the generated HTML page.

This allows you to place JavaScript in your pages (though you'll be a little limited as to what it can act on).

You could also use this to embed a style sheet in the header.


HTML footer file

Possible values
: Local file containing HTML code to be used as footer
Default value
: ""
Policy scope
: Fixed output policy
Policy file section
: Added HTML
Menu location
: Output | Title, description etc.
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a


Identifies the name of a text include file to be transcribed into the HTML file at the bottom of the <BODY> ... </BODY> portion of each generated HTML page. Because this file is just copied into the HTML, the file should normally include HTML tags, rather than plain text.

This can be used to add "return to home page" links, and contact addresses to your HTML pages. Again, this helps to give a consistent "look and feel" when breaking your document up into a number of smaller HTML files.

See also "HTML header file"


HTML header file

Possible values
: Local file containing HTML code to be used as header
Default value
: ""
Policy scope
: Fixed output policy
Policy file section
: Added HTML
Menu location
: Output | Title, description etc.
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a


Identifies the name of a text include file to be transcribed into the HTML file at the top of the <BODY> ... </BODY> portion of the generated HTML page. Because this file is just copied into the HTML, the file should normally include HTML tags, rather than plain text.

This can be used to add standard headers, logos, contact addresses to your HTML pages, and is especially useful to give a consistent "look and feel" when breaking your document up into a number of smaller HTML files.

See also "HTML footer file"


Hanging paragraph position(s)

Possible values
: A space-separated increasing series of tab positions,
starting at 0 (e.g. "0 4 8")
Default value
: 0
Policy scope
: Fixed analysis policy
Policy file section
: Analysis
Menu location
: n/a
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a


These values indicate the offsets at which definition paragraphs are expected


Headings Colour

Possible values
: HTML colours
Default value
: ""
Policy scope
: Dynamic output policy
Policy file section
: Style
Menu location
: Output | Style
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a


Indicates what colour to use for all the headings marked up in <Hn> markup. Not all browsers support this.

In HTML 4.0 this is better handled via CSS, rather than placing explicit colour markup on each heading.


Highlight Definition Text

Possible values
: Yes/No
Default value
: No
Policy scope
: Dynamic output policy
Policy file section
: Style
Menu location
: Output | Style
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a


Specifies whether or not the definition term of each definition detected (the part marked up in <DT> ... </DT>) should be placed in bold for greater emphasis.


Hyperlinks on numbers

Possible values
: Yes/No
Default value
: No
Policy scope
: Fixed output policy
Policy file section
: Contents
Menu location
: Output | Contents List
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a


Whenever a file has numbered sections, and a contents list is being created, this indicates whether the hyperlink taking you to the section should be placed on the number or the section title in the contents list

The default is to place the hyperlink on the section title.


Ignore multiple blank lines

Possible values
: Yes/No
Default value
: No
Policy scope
: Dynamic output policy
Policy file section
: Style
Menu location
: Output | Style
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a


Specifies whether or not multiple blank lines ("white space") in the source file should be ignored.

Normally HTML ignores white space, but if this policy is disabled then additional blank lines will be marked up as <BR>. That means that a large gap in the source file will translate to a large gap in the HTML file.

If you wish to eliminate white space from your output, switch this off. You should also review the "Use <P> markup for paragraphs" policy


Include document section(s)

Possible values
: Space-separated list of SECTION names
Default value
: "" (which is the same as "ALL")
Policy scope
: Fixed output policy
Policy file section
: Preprocessor
Menu location
: Analysis | Preprocessor
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: SECTION


The program allows pre-processor commands to divide a document into sections using the SECTION command. (This is quite separate from the detection of section headings in the source document).

The point of the SECTION command is to mark up parts of the document that may optionally be included or omitted from the conversion, e.g. to allow the same source document to generate different output for different audiences.

This policy tells the programs which section types are to be included in the conversion. The name(s) supplied should match that in the SECTION directive(s), and should be one-word.

A value of "all" indicates that all section types should be converted.

The value may be a space-separated list of section names. Each section name must be a single word (underscores are allowed though).

For more details, read the main AscToHTM documentation.


Indent headings in Directory

Possible values
: Yes/No
Default value
: Yes
Policy scope
: Fixed output policy
Policy file section
: Directory
Menu location
: Output | Directory List
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a


If a contents list is being generated, then this Specifies whether or not the contents list should be shown at multiple indent levels, with sub-sections indented relative to sections etc.

If disabled, all the contents hyperlinks will be at the same indentation level, one level in from any file titles shown.


Indent position(s)

Possible values
: A series of increasing integer values, starting at 0
Default value
: 0
Policy scope
: Fixed analysis policy
Policy file section
: Analysis
Menu location
: Analysis | Analysis
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a

These are the positions of the major indent levels in the document. This should be a list of ascending space-separated numbers, with "0" usually being the first value.

Text in the source file will be output at a level of indentation calculated by comparing the source line's left margin with the values set here. The TAB Size may form part of this calculation if tabs are present.

For example a line with 6 spaces at the start will be placed as follows

"0"
- left margin
"0 4 8"
- one level of indent (>4 but 6<)
"0 2 4 6"
- three levels of indent (>2, >4 and >=6)
"0 8"
- left margin (<8)

In practice a little rounding up is allowed.

The program will attempt to calculate the correct indentation pattern, and will reject consecutive positions, e.g. "0 1 2" wouldn't be accepted.

Note, a value of "0" by itself will suppress all indentation in the output.





Input directory

Possible values
: Local input directory (don't normally use this)
Default value
: ""
Policy scope
: Dynamic analysis policy
Policy file section
: n/a
Menu location
: Main screen
Command line option
: the first argument of the command line
Related directives
: n/a


In principle this policy allows the source directory to be specified. In practice the source directory is usually implied from the source file.

In the Windows version the input directory can be explicitly set on the main screen.

It is nor recommended that you include this policy line in any policy files you create.

Input file has page markers

Possible values
: Yes/No
Default value
: No
Policy scope
: Fixed analysis policy
Policy file section
: Analysis
Menu location
: Analysis | File Structure
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a


Specifies that the input file has page markers. Such pages are assumed to be form feeds <FF>.

Together with the Page marker size (in lines) policy, you can get the program to ignore the next few lines after a page marker. This can be used to remove lines at the top of each page from the source document as viewed by the program.

This removal, however is far from perfect given that

It is hoped to improve these algorithms after V4.0 is released.




Input file is double spaced

Possible values
: Yes/No
Default value
: No
Policy scope
: Fixed analysis policy
Policy file section
: Analysis
Menu location
: Analysis | File Structure
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a


Indicates that, as seen by the program, the input file is double spaced. That is, every second line is blank.

This can be the case if

The conversion will look quite different if every second line is thought to be blank. If you set this policy, every second blank line will be ignored.

Eventually it is hoped to make detection of such files automatically, but currently (V4.0) this is not the case.


Keep it simple

Possible values
: Yes/No
Default value
: No
Policy scope
: Dynamic analysis policy
Policy file section
: Analysis
Menu location
: Main screen, or
Analysis | File Structure
Command line option
: /SIMPLE
Related directives
: n/a


This tells the program to suppress much of its advanced searches for structure.

This should be used when converting short documents that don't really have numbered sections, bullets, tables etc but which might look to the program as though they do (e.g. because they contain addresses, lists or tables of consecutive numbers)

A simple conversion will preserve much of your line structure and convert URLS to hyperlinks, but it won't add much else.

This option is equivalent to adding /SIMPLE to the command line.



Largest allowed <Hn> tag

Possible values
: 1 (largest) - 5 (smallest)
Default value
: 2
Policy scope
: Fixed output policy
Policy file section
: Style
Menu location
: Output | Style
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a


Together with "Smallest allowed <Hn> tag" these policies allow you to control the heading sizes <Hn> used to mark up any headings that are detected.

By default <H2> is used for main level headings, with each subsequent heading level being one size smaller, down to <H3> (normal text size).

The software will ignore these values if out of range, or if the largest value represents a smaller heading (larger Hn) that the "smallest" value.


Link Dictionary file

Possible values
: Local file containing Link Dictionary definitions
Default value
: ""
Policy scope
: Dynamic output policy
Policy file section
: Link Dictionary
Menu location
: Output | Link Dictionary
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a

reserved for future use


List markup code

Possible values
: 0,1, or 2
Default value
: 0
Policy scope
: Fixed output policy
Policy file section
: Merrill
Menu location
: n/a
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a

Controls the tags used to implement lists

n=0
Use <UL> or <OL> together with <LI>...</LI> markup. This is "traditional" HTML.
n=1
Use <DL><DT>...<DD>...</DL> markup. As suggested by Tom.
n=2
Use <INDENT>...</INDENT> markup. As suggested by Jaf, where <INDENT> is either <UL>, <BLOCKQUOTE> or <DIV>

Look for MAIL and USENET headers

Possible values
: Yes/No
Default value
: Yes
Policy scope
: Dynamic analysis policy
Policy file section
: Analysis
Menu location
: Analysis | What to look for
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a


Specifies that the program should attempt to detect, (and re-format) any MAIL or USENET headers. These will be present if the file you are converting

Where such headers are detected, the Author, Subject and Date are looked for. If these are detected, the header is replaced by a Heading with this information formatted in a standard manner.

Where this occurs the new heading becomes available for any contents list that is generated.

Look for bullets

Possible values
: Yes/No
Default value
: Yes
Policy scope
: Dynamic analysis policy
Policy file section
: Analysis
Menu location
: Analysis | What to look for
or
Analysis | Bullets
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a


Specifies that the program should look for, and format, bullets and numbered lists.

Disable this only if the program is wrongly formatting as bullets and lists things that are not. In such cases you could also consider reformatting your source file so that the "bullet" text no longer appears at the start of a line.

Look for horizontal rulers

Possible values
: Yes/No
Default value
: Yes
Policy scope
: Dynamic analysis policy
Policy file section
: Analysis
Menu location
: Analysis | What to look for
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a


Specifies that the program should look for, and format, horizontal lines as separators. Such lines will be marked up as Rules, rather than as the original character sequence.

See also Minimum ruler length

Look for hanging paragraphs

Possible values
: Yes/No
Default value
: Yes
Policy scope
: Dynamic analysis policy
Policy file section
: Analysis
Menu location
: Analysis | What to look for
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a


Specifies whether or not the program should look for, and attempt to format, hanging paragraphs.

Look for indentation

Possible values
: Yes/No
Default value
: Yes
Policy scope
: Dynamic analysis policy
Policy file section
: Analysis
Menu location
: Analysis | What to look for
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a


Specifies whether or not the program should look for, and attempt to replicate, the pattern of indentation used in the file.

The program can detect the character positions used for different levels of indentation, and then use tags to implement this in the output. If this goes wrong, then text will be wrongly indented and (because of the tagging involved) unwanted vertical white space will often appear wherever the change in indent occurs. This can be especially true for the first lines of paragraphs (see "new paragraph offset").

If you have such problems, disable this policy and the whole document will be left justified.

Look for preformatted text

Possible values
: Yes/No
Default value
: Yes
Policy scope
: Dynamic analysis policy
Policy file section
: Analysis
Menu location
: Analysis | What to look for
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a


Specifies whether or not regions of preformatted text should be searched for. If found, the program may attempt to detect

If it decides the region is one of these, then special formatting will be applied.

If you find the program is wrongly treating text as formatted (this can be checked by looking for comments in the HTML code), then disable this policy.

See also Attempt TABLE generation and Expect code samples

Look for quoted text

Possible values
: Yes/No
Default value
: Yes
Policy scope
: Dynamic analysis policy
Policy file section
: Analysis
Menu location
: Analysis | What to look for
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a


Specifies whether or not the program should attempt to detect "quoted" text. Quoted text will be placed in <EM> markup to emphasise the quoted text.

Quoted text is commonly found in email and USENET posts. If you find the program wrongly placing text in italics, try disabling this policy.

Look for short lines

Possible values
: Yes/No
Default value
: Yes
Policy scope
: Dynamic analysis policy
Policy file section
: Analysis
Menu location
: Analysis | What to look for
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a


Specifies whether or not the program should look for "short lines". By default the line structure of the source is not preserved, rather the program attempts to preserve the paragraph structure. This results in a document that responds better to changes in browser width.

However, the program recognises that lines that are short are probably intentionally so, and so it attempt to detect such lines and add a break on the end so that the line structure is preserved.

See also "Short line length"

Look for white space

Possible values
: Yes/No
Default value
: Yes
Policy scope
: Dynamic analysis policy
Policy file section
: Analysis
Menu location
: Analysis | What to look for
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a


Specifies whether or not the program should look for white space, especially when trying to detect paragraph boundaries.

You should usually leave this enabled, unless you want to explicitly place tags in the source text to markup paragraph boundaries.


Make Directory

Possible values
: Yes/No
Default value
: No
Policy scope
: Fixed output policy
Policy file section
: Directory
Menu location
: Output | Directory List
Command line option
: /INDEX=[<filename>]
Related directives
: n/a


Specifies whether or not you want a Directory page built. A Directory page will contain hyperlinks to all files and sections within files that are converted at the same time.

This normally only makes sense if you're using wildcard file specifications to convert multiple files at once.

This policy is equivalent to adding /INDEX=<filename> on the command line

Maximum level to show in contents

Possible values
: 0,1,2...
Default value
: 0 (= "all")
Policy scope
: Fixed output policy
Policy file section
: Contents
Menu location
: Output | Contents List
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a


Specified the number of levels of headings to show in any generated contents lists. A value of "1" would only show chapter headings, a value of "2" would also show the major sections etc, etc.


Min HTML file size

Possible values
: Any number of lines
Default value
: -1 (none)
Policy scope
: Dynamic output policy
Policy file section
: File generation
Menu location
: Output | File generation
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a


This policy is only relevant when splitting the document into multiple, smaller output files (see "split level").

When a large source file is being split into many output HTML files, this policy specifies a minimum output HTML size in lines (although this is only approximate).

This can be useful for documents that have chapters where all the content is in the sub-sections. In such documents you'd end up with a virtually empty chapter heading file if this policy is not used.


Min chapter size

Possible values
: Any number of lines
Default value
: 8
Policy scope
: Dynamic analysis policy
Policy file section
: Analysis
Menu location
: Analysis | General layout
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a


This specifies the minimum chapter size expected in the source document (in numbers of lines). This is used by the program during analysis to ignore any apparent Chapter headings that appear too close together.

In this way the program attempt to distinguish between 2 chapter headings, and 2 items on a numbered list.


Minimise HTML file size

Possible values
: Yes/No
Default value
: No
Policy scope
: Fixed output policy
Policy file section
: File generation
Menu location
: Output | File generation
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a


This indicates that the created HTML file should be made as small as possible, e.g. to reduce download times.

By default AscToHTM attempts to layout the created HTML code in an easy-to-read manner. This was done so that the created HTML would be easier to manually edit after creation.

To make the code easier to read, AscToHTM inserts white space to indent the code to match the output indentation levels. It also outputs each cell of a TABLE on its own line.

All this white space adds up, particularly the indentation of largely-empty cells in TABLES. If you select this option, all the extra white space is eliminated.

Depending on the file contents, this can make the file 5-20% smaller (and hence faster to download), at a cost of readability.

Of course, this benefit is only really worth it when converting larger files.


Minimum TABLE column separation

Possible values
: Min. number of space characters between columns 1,2,3
Default value
: 1
Policy scope
: Dynamic analysis policy
Policy file section
: Tables
Menu location
: Analysis | Table Analysis
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: TABLE_MIN_COL_SEPARATION


Specifies the minimum number of spaces that may be interpreted as a column separator in a table.

The default value is 1, but in small tables this can lead to too many "columns" being detected. If you experience this problem try increasing this value to 2 or higher.

Note,
if the value becomes too large, you may experience the opposite

problem, i.e. too few columns being detected.


Minimum automatic <PRE> size

Possible values
: Any number of lines.
Default value
: 1
Policy scope
: Dynamic analysis policy
Policy file section
: Pre-formatted
Menu location
: Analysis | Preformatted text
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: BEGIN_PRE ... END_PRE



Specifies the minimum number of consecutive lines that must appear pre-formatted before they can be placed in their own <PRE> ... </PRE> sections.

Pre-formatted text, once detected is analysed to see if it is

Note:
Only values in the range 1-20 are likely to have an effect. Values above 20 are likely to simply disable this feature entirely. This limitation is due to the size of the readahead buffer AscToHTM uses.

See also "Attempt TABLE generation".

Minimum ruler length

Possible values
: Number of characters > 0
Default value
: 4
Policy scope
: Dynamic analysis policy
Policy file section
: Analysis
Menu location
: Analysis | General layout
or
Analysis | What to look for
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a


Specifies the minimum length of any line to be considered as a horizontal rule when the program is looking for such lines (see "Look for horizontal rulers")

Lines in the source text that consist only of "rule-like" characters, and which exceed this minimum length will be marked up as Rules, rather than as the original character sequence.

See also Minimum ruler length

Monitor tag generation

Possible values
: Yes/No
Default value
: Yes
Policy scope
: Fixed output policy
Policy file section
: Tagging
Menu location
: n/a
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a


A diagnostic policy that specifies that HTML tag generation should be monitored for correctness. This will check that each tag has a matching end tag (where required), and that tags are not incorrectly nested.

This shouldn't normally be necessary, but can sometimes help locate HTML errors when extra HTML is embedded in the source file and interacts unfavourably with the HTML generated by the software.


New Paragraph Offset

Possible values
: A number of characters
Default value
: -1 (none)
Policy scope
: Dynamic analysis policy
Policy file section
: Analysis
Menu location
: Analysis | General layout
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a


This specifies the size of any hanging indent expected on the first line of each paragraph. It is quite common, e.g. when saving Word for Windows files, to find the first line of each paragraph indented relative to the rest of the text. This specifies the size of that indent.

Although this is normally detected automatically, in smaller documents this can sometimes fail, with the result that the first line may be indented with respect to the rest of the paragraph. Unfortunately, this can also introduce a blank line between the first and subsequent lines. If this happens either change this value, or cancel all indentation by setting the value of "Indent position(s)"

New browser window name

Possible values
: Text string
Default value
: "other"
Policy scope
: Dynamic output policy
Policy file section
: Hyperlinks
Menu location
: Output | Hyperlinks
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a


Specifies that where hyperlinks are to be opened in a new browser window, what the name of that window should be.

See the discussion in "Open links in new browser window"


Omit <HEAD> and <BODY> from output

Possible values
: Yes/No
Default value
: No
Policy scope
: Fixed output policy
Policy file section
: File generation
Menu location
: n/a
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a

reserved
NOT YET IMPLEMENTED


Only use known groups

Possible values
: Yes/No
Default value
: Yes
Policy scope
: Dynamic output policy
Policy file section
: Hyperlinks
Menu location
: Output | Hyperlinks
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a


Indicates whether or not only newsgroups from known hierarchies should be converted into news: hyperlinks.

AscToHTM can detect possible newsgroups by looking for words like "something.like.this" and "news.answers". However assuming these are newsgroups often leads to errors.

Consequently if this policy is enabled then candidate newsgroups have to belong to either a standard USENET hierarchy such as "alt", "comp", "sci" etc, or to a user-specified USENET hierarchy (see "Recognised USENET groups").

If disabled then "something.like.this" will be turned into a news: hyperlink.

This policy only takes effect if "Create NEWS links" is enabled.

Open links in new browser window

Possible values
: Yes/No
Default value
: No
Policy scope
: Dynamic output policy
Policy file section
: Hyperlinks
Menu location
: Output | Hyperlinks
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a


Specifies that where hyperlinks are added to the HTML, the target window for these links should be a new window. This means that when you click on these links a new window is opened, and the original window continues to display the original document. If you don't select this policy, the new document replaces the old document in the current browser window.

See also "New browser window name"


Output directory

Possible values
: Local output directory (don't normally set this)
Default value
: ""
Policy scope
: Fixed output policy
Policy file section
: n/a
Menu location
: n/a
Command line option
: /OUT=<filespec>
Related directives
: n/a


In principle this policy allows the output directory to be specified. In practice the output directory usually defaults to the input directory, or is set by the user via the user interface or the command line.

In the Windows version the output directory can be explicitly set on the main screen.

It is nor recommended that you include this policy line in any policy files you create.


Output file extension

Possible values
: File extension to be used for generated files
Default value
: ".html" or ".rtf"
Policy scope
: Fixed output policy
Policy file section
: File generation
Menu location
: Output | File generation
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a


This policy specifies an alternative extension to be used for the created files. For example you may want the program to create ".shtml" files.

If present, this policy overrides that set in the "Use .HTM extension" policy.

Output log filename

Possible values
: Local file to contain log of conversion(s)
Default value
: "AscToHTM.log"
Policy scope
: Fixed output policy
Policy file section
: n/a
Menu location
: n/a
Command line option
: /LOG=<filespec>
Related directives
: n/a


Specifies the name of any log file to be created.

See also "Create a log file"


Output policy file

Possible values
: Yes/No
Default value
: No
Policy scope
: Fixed output policy
Policy file section
: n/a
Menu location
: n/a
Command line option
: /POLICY=<file>
Related directives
: n/a


This policy allows you to specify that you want AscToHTM to output the file policy that is being used. This will be a combination of the policy calculated by AscToHTM during the analysis pass, and any user-supplied policy lines.

The output policy file will have a .pol extension in the output directory.

This policy has the same effect as the command line qualifier /POLICY.


Output policy filename

Possible values
: Local file to be generated with calculate policies documented
Default value
: ""
Policy scope
: Fixed output policy
Policy file section
: n/a
Menu location
: n/a
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a

reserved

NOT YET IMPLEMENTED?


Page Width

Possible values
: Number of characters. Typically 65-100
Default value
: 80
Policy scope
: Dynamic analysis policy
Policy file section
: Analysis
Menu location
: Analysis | General layout
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a

Used to set the nominal page width of the input text. This doesn't affect the output directly, but the page width is used in a number of calculation used to determine other effects which do affect the rendering. These include

Page marker size (in lines)

Possible values
: Number of Lines in page header
Default value
: 0
Policy scope
: Fixed analysis policy
Policy file section
: Analysis
Menu location
: Analysis | File Structure
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a


Specifies the size of any "headers" that occur after new page characters in the source text. These headers can be ignored for the purposes of conversion, although the process is currently far from perfect.

See the discussion in Input file has page markers

Preserve underlining of headings

Possible values
: Yes/No
Default value
: Yes
Policy scope
: Dynamic output policy
Policy file section
: Headings
Menu location
: Output | HTML styling
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a


Specifies that those headings that are underlined should keep their underlining in the output. Sometimes you want the underlining to signify the previous line is a heading, but don't necessarily want that heading underlined in the output.

Recognise '-' as a bullet

Possible values
: Yes/No
Default value
: Yes
Policy scope
: Dynamic analysis policy
Policy file section
: Bullets
Menu location
: Analysis | Bullets
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a


Specifies that the hyphen character by itself at the start of a line should be treated as signifying a bullet point.

Recognise 'o' as a bullet

Possible values
: Yes/No
Default value
: Yes
Policy scope
: Dynamic analysis policy
Policy file section
: Bullets
Menu location
: Analysis | Bullets
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a


Specifies that the letter 'o' by itself at the start of a line should be treated as signifying a bullet point. This is a fairly common practise, especially in text documents exported from other software packages.


Recognised USENET groups

Possible values
: Space separated list or USENET hierarchy roots
Default value
: ""
Policy scope
: Fixed output policy
Policy file section
: Hyperlinks
Menu location
: Output | Hyperlinks
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a


This policy allows you to specify USENET hierarchies that you wish to recognise in addition to the standard hierarchies. The value is a space separated list of the top level hierarchy names. So, for example, to ensure that uk.telecom and demon.ip.support are recognised as valid newsgroup hyperlinks, set the policy value as follows:-

Recognised USENET groups : uk demon

This policy only takes effect if "Create NEWS links" is enabled.



Rule set to be used

Possible values
: One of the recognised rulesets
Default value
: "(none)"
Policy scope
: Fixed output policy
Policy file section
: n/a
Menu location
: Output | Merrill
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a


Specifies the "ruleset" to be used. Rulesets are hard-coded sets of policies set up to address particular types of documents.

This feature is expected to be used more in the future.



Scope COLOUR tags globally

Possible values
: Yes/No
Default value
: Yes
Policy scope
: Fixed output policy
Policy file section
: n/a
Menu location
: n/a
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a


Specifies whether the [COLOUR] tags should scope globally or locally. "Global" scope means the colour won't change until another [COLOUR] tag is encountered. "Local" means the colour will only scope as far as the next font change.


Search for definitions

Possible values
: Yes/No
Default value
: Yes
Policy scope
: Dynamic analysis policy
Policy file section
: Analysis
Menu location
: Analysis | General layout
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a
or
Analysis | What to look for
See also
: Definitions

This policy can be used to disable the search for definitions (see Definitions).
Use this whenever your file contains no definitions, but AscToHTM thinks it does.


Search for emphasis

Possible values
: Yes/No
Default value
: Yes
Policy scope
: Dynamic output policy
Policy file section
: Style
Menu location
: Output | Style
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a


This policy specifies whether or not the program should look for emphasised text. Text can be emphasised by placing asterisks (*) either side of it, or underscores (_). The program will convert the enclosed text to bold and italic respectively.

Both single words and phrases can be detected, however phrases spanning blank lines, or nested emphasis may not be correctly handled.



Short line length

Possible values
: Number of characters.
Default value
: -1 (none)
Policy scope
: Dynamic analysis policy
Policy file section
: Analysis
Menu location
: Analysis | General layout
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a


This policy determines what constitutes a short line. AscToHTM may add a <BR> to any line it deems to be short.

If omitted, a "short" line is determined as some fraction of the calculated page width. The fraction varies from 50-75% according to the conversion type being carried out.

If you set this value large, then all lines may be treated as short, preserving the line structure of the original. Conversely if you set it small, then very few lines will acquire a break.




Show file Titles in Directory

Possible values
: Yes/No
Default value
: Yes
Policy scope
: Fixed output policy
Policy file section
: Directory
Menu location
: Output | Directory List
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a


When generating a directory page (see "Make Directory"), this specifies whether or not there should be a hyperlink to the top of each file converted (as opposed to just their contents).

If selected, the HTML file's title (see "Document Title") will be shown as a hyperlink. If the file has no title, then the original filename is shown instead.



Smallest allowed <Hn> tag

Possible values
: 1 (largest) - 5 (smallest)
Default value
: 5
Policy scope
: Fixed output policy
Policy file section
: Style
Menu location
: Output | Style
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a

Together with "Largest allowed <Hn> tag" these policies allow you to control the heading sizes <Hn> used to mark up any headings that are detected.

By default <H2> is used for main level headings, with each subsequent heading level being one size smaller, down to <H3> (normal text size).

The software will ignore these values if out of range, or if the largest value represents a smaller heading (larger Hn) that the "smallest" value.


Split level

Possible values
: Section level. Usually 0,1 or 2.
Default value
: -1 (none)
Policy scope
: Fixed output policy
Policy file section
: File generation
Menu location
: Output | File generation
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a


Identifies the heading level (or depth) at which the generated HTML should be split into smaller files.

A value of "none" will put all the HTML into one file.

"1" creates a new HTML file for each new major section. "2" creates a new HTML file for each new subsection "3" creates a new HTML file for each new sub-subsection

The first file created normally has a name that matches the source file. Subsequent files append either the section number (for numbered sections), or the first word (for underlines or capitalised section headings), separated by underscores. If duplicate filenames are detected, then an extra number is appended to the name

Thus a file called MYDOC.TXT with numbered sections and this policy set to "2" will generate files called

MYDOC.HTML,
MYDOC_1.HTML,
MYDOC_1_1.HTML etc...
MYDOC_2.HTML
...





Suppress all colour markup

Possible values
: Yes/No
Default value
: ""
Policy scope
: Fixed output policy
Policy file section
: Added HTML
Menu location
: Output | Document colours
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a

Specifies that all colour markup should be suppressed. This means all other colour policies will be ignored, and no default colours will be added.

This can be useful when wanting to generate a page suitable for access by people with impaired vision. Selecting this option produces HTML which they can set the colours on using their browsers.

Suppress INFO messages

Possible values
: Yes/No
Default value
: No
Policy scope
: Fixed output policy
Policy file section
: Messages
Menu location
: Settings | Diagnostic messages
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a


Suppresses all "INFO" messages from the display. These are messages deemed to be "informational"

The severity (reporting level) will match how important/useful the seriousness of the warning.

Together with the "Error Reporting Level" policy, similar suppression policies and the /SILENT command qualifier, you have a fair degree of control of the level of reporting made visible during conversion.

Suppress TAG ERROR messages

Possible values
: Yes/No
Default value
: No
Policy scope
: Fixed output policy
Policy file section
: Messages
Menu location
: Settings | Diagnostic messages
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a


Suppresses all "TAG ERROR" messages from the display. These are messages reporting failure to implement inline tags and directives (if any) placed in your source text.

However, you should really fix up all your tag errors if possible.

Together with the "Error Reporting Level" policy, similar suppression policies and the /SILENT command qualifier, you have a fair degree of control of the level of reporting made visible during conversion.

Suppress URL messages

Possible values
: Yes/No
Default value
: Yes
Policy scope
: Fixed output policy
Policy file section
: Messages
Menu location
: Settings | Diagnostic messages
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a


Suppresses all "URL" messages from the display. These are messages that report the detection of URLs in the document being converted.

Together with the "Error Reporting Level" policy, similar suppression policies and the /SILENT command qualifier, you have a fair degree of control of the level of reporting made visible during conversion.

Suppress WARNING messages

Possible values
: Yes/No
Default value
: No
Policy scope
: Fixed output policy
Policy file section
: Messages
Menu location
: Settings | Diagnostic messages
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a


Suppresses all "WARNING" messages from the display. These are messages usually reporting that the program has possibly done something you may not have wanted it to, or not done something you might have wanted it to. For example if lines that could contain emphasis or headings are rejected, a warning will be issued.

The severity (reporting level) will match the seriousness of the warning.

Together with the "Error Reporting Level" policy, similar suppression policies and the /SILENT command qualifier, you have a fair degree of control of the level of reporting made visible during conversion.

Suppress program ERROR messages

Possible values
: Yes/No
Default value
: No
Policy scope
: Fixed output policy
Policy file section
: Messages
Menu location
: Settings | Diagnostic messages
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a


Suppresses all "PROGRAM ERROR" messages from the display. These are messages indicating that the program itself thinks it's done something wrong.

There's not much you can do about such errors, other than ignore them, or report them to the author so he can fix the software.

Together with the "Error Reporting Level" policy, similar suppression policies and the /SILENT command qualifier, you have a fair degree of control of the level of reporting made visible during conversion.


TAB size

Possible values
: Tab size. Usually a multiple of 2 or 4
Default value
: 8
Policy scope
: Dynamic analysis policy
Policy file section
: Analysis
Menu location
: Analysis | General layout
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a


Specifies the size of TABs in your source document. During analysis the program converts all tabs to spaces assuming using this tab size. This becomes important only when comparing lines that use tabs to lines that use spaces for alignment. If problems occur you may find indentations appear strange, or tables are not quite right.

Note,
text that is all tabs or all spaces should experience no such

problems.

If you know your source file uses a different TAB size (e.g. Notepad files use a value of 4), try adjusting this policy.


Text Colour

Possible values
: HTML colours
Default value
: ""
Policy scope
: Fixed output policy
Policy file section
: Added HTML
Menu location
: Output | Document colours
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a


Identifies the text colour of the HTML page(s) created. This value is a HTML colour that is used to set the TEXT attribute of the <BODY> tag.


Text justification

Possible values
: "left", "right", "center" or "none"
Default value
: "left"
Policy scope
: Dynamic analysis policy
Policy file section
: Analysis
Menu location
: Analysis | File Structure
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a

This policy is important in detecting pre-formatted text.

If text is centered then padding spaces may be added. This has to be ignored when detecting pre-formatted text.

Somewhat confusingly "center" here means what most word processors would call "justified".


Unvisited Link Colour

Possible values
: HTML colours
Default value
: ""
Policy scope
: Fixed output policy
Policy file section
: Added HTML
Menu location
: Output | Document colours
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a

Identifies the colour of "unvisited" hyperlinks, that is the colour of the hyperlink before it is selected for the first time. This value is a HTML colour that is used to set the LINK attribute of the <BODY> tag.

See also "Active Link Colour", "Visited Link Colour"


Use .HTM extension

Possible values
: Yes/No
Default value
: No
Policy scope
: Fixed output policy
Policy file section
: File generation
Menu location
: Output | File generation
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a


This policy specifies whether or not the generated HTML files should have a .HTM extension. The default is to use a ".html" extension, unless DOS-compatible files are requested.

This will be enabled whenever "Use DOS filenames" is selected.

Note this policy may be overridden by the more general "Use .HTM extension" policy.


Use <CODE>..</CODE> markup

Possible values
: Yes/No
Default value
: No
Policy scope
: Dynamic output policy
Policy file section
: Tables
Menu location
: n/a
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a


This policy specifies that where a code fragment has been detected or marked up, what sort of HTML markup should be used.

HTML provides a special <CODE> .. </CODE> markup that is suited to variables being quoted in text, but is not well suited for marking up several lines. In particular, you have to add non-breaking spaces and <BR> markup if you wish to correctly lay out several lines. This makes the resultant HTML harder to read and much larger.

For this reason, AscToHTM defaults to <PRE> .. </PRE> markup for code fragments. The only reason for reversing this might be if you needed the <CODE> tag for a particular style sheet to take effect.


Use <DL> markup for defn. paras

Possible values
: Yes/No
Default value
: Yes
Policy scope
: Dynamic output policy
Policy file section
: Style
Menu location
: Output | Style
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a


This policy specifies whether or not definition paragraphs should be marked up using <DL><DT>..<DT> <DD>..</DD></DL> markup.

The default is "yes", but if you find that too much text is being marked up this way, either disable this policy of disable search for definitions.

Use <EM> and <STRONG> markup

Possible values
: Yes/No
Default value
: Yes
Policy scope
: Fixed output policy
Policy file section
: Style
Menu location
: n/a
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a


Specifies whether <EM> and <STRONG> markup should be used in preference to <I> and <B> when placing text in italic or bold markup.

Strictly speaking <EM> and <STRONG> should be used as these are "logical" as opposed to "physical" markup.

The preference has become a near religious decision which I avoid, by giving you this policy so you can choose (if you really care)


Use <P> markup for paragraphs

Possible values
: Yes/No
Default value
: Yes
Policy scope
: Dynamic output policy
Policy file section
: Style
Menu location
: Output | Style
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a


This policy specifies whether <P> or <BR> markup should be used for paragraphs. In most browsers <P> markup produces more white space with apparently a "blank line" placed between paragraphs. A <BR> doesn't have this effect.

You should use this policy if you wish to reduce the amount of white space in your output document, in which case you should also review the "ignore multiple blank lines" policy.

This policy is switched on by default. We don't recommend you change this, especially if you plan to use the font and CSS abilities being added in V4.0 and above.


Use DOS filenames

Possible values
: Yes/No
Default value
: No
Policy scope
: Fixed output policy
Policy file section
: File generation
Menu location
: Output | File generation
Command line option
: /DOS
Related directives
: n/a


This specifies whether or not the names of the generated HTML files must be DOS compatible. This policy has the same effect as using the /DOS qualifier on the command line.

If selected the filenames will all have a ".HTM" extension, and be given upper case names.

Any file name whose root exceeds 8 character will be shortened by keeping the first 3 characters, and adding a unique 5-digit number derived from the longer name.

See also "DOS filename root"


Use Preprocessor

Possible values
: Yes/No
Default value
: Yes
Policy scope
: Dynamic analysis policy
Policy file section
: Preprocessor
Menu location
: Analysis | preprocessor
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a


This policy tells AscToHTM whether or not the preprocessor should be used. If it isn't used, then all preprocessor directives are ignored and a straight conversion from input to output files occurs.

Note:
If this policy is set to "no", all related preprocessor

policies will have no effect.

We don't normally recommend you change this.


Use any existing contents list

Possible values
: Yes/No
Default value
: Yes
Policy scope
: Fixed output policy
Policy file section
: Contents
Menu location
: Output | Contents List
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a


This policy specifies whether or not you wish to use any existing contents list found in the source document. If you disable this option, any contents found will be discarded. A contents list will only be added if you select the "add contents list" policy


Use first heading as Title

Possible values
: Yes/No
Default value
: No
Policy scope
: Fixed output policy
Policy file section
: Added HTML
Menu location
: Output | Title, description etc.
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a


Specifies that the first heading in the document may be considered as a candidate for the document title.

See the discussion in "Document title".


Use first line as Title

Possible values
: Yes/No
Default value
: No
Policy scope
: Fixed output policy
Policy file section
: Added HTML
Menu location
: Output | Title, description etc.
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a


Specifies that the first meaningful line in the document may be considered as a candidate for the document title. "Meaningful" in this context means a line recognised by the program as a headings which is more that 2 characters long once trimmed of all leading and trailing white space.

See the discussion in "Document title".




Visited Link Colour

Possible values
: HTML colours
Default value
: ""
Policy scope
: Fixed output policy
Policy file section
: Added HTML
Menu location
: Output | Document colours
Command line option
: n/a
Related directives
: n/a


Identifies the colour of "visited" hyperlinks, that is the colour of the hyperlink after is has been selected at least once. This value is a HTML colour that is used to set the VLINK attribute of the <BODY> tag.

See also "Active Link Colour", "Unvisited Link Colour"




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© 1997-99 John A. Fotheringham
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