OpenOffice::OODoc::Text 2.032

OpenOffice::OODoc::Text is a Perl module for the text processing submodule of OpenOffice::OODoc.

This manual chapter describes the text-oriented methods of OpenOffice::OODoc, implemented by the OpenOffice::OODoc::Text class, and inherited by the OpenOffice::OODoc::Document class.

These methods are not essentially dedicated to string processing; they are more precisely focused on text containers. A text container is a document element which can (and must) be used in order to support a text and integrate it at the right place and according to the right presentation rules. The OpenDocument specification defines a lot of such containers, and the present API supports many of them, such as paragraphs, headings, tables (or spreadsheets), lists, sections, and draw pages. Some of these containers can host other containers: for example, a table contains rows, a row contains cells, a section can contain almost everything including other sections, etc.

These features are text-oriented, but can be used on documents of any class, such as spreadsheets or presentations as well as text documents. So, the Text word doesnt mean that the features described in the present manual chapter are dedicated to OpenOffice.org Writer documents only. In the other hand, a few methods cant apply to any document class (ex: creating or retrieving draw pages makes sense with presentation and drawing documents only).

OODoc::Text should not be explicitly used in an ordinary application, because all its features are available through the OpenOffice::OODoc::Document class, in combination with other features. Practically, the present manual is provided to describe the text-oriented features of OpenOffice::OODoc::Document (knowing that these features are technically supported by the OpenOffice::OODoc::Text component of the API).

The OpenOffice::OODoc::Text class is a specialist derivative of OpenOffice::OODoc::XPath for XML elements which describe the text content of OOo/ODF documents. Here, "text content" means containers that can host text containers (i.e. tables, lists...) as well as flat text.
Knowing that the "styles.xml" member of an OpenOffice.org file can contain text (because some style definitions, such as page headers or footers, can contain text), the presently described features can be used against this member as well as the "content.xml" member.

This module should be used in combination with OpenOffice::OODoc::Styles, via the OpenOffice::OODoc::Document class, if the application has to handle detailed presentation parameters of text elements. This is because such parameters are held in styles elements and not in the text elements themselves, according to the principle of separation of content and presentation which is one of the foundations of the OpenDocument format.