Whitespace Handling in Author Mode

Minimizing whitespace differences between versions

When serializing a document to XML, Author mode will only format and indent those elements of the document that have been edited. Any element that has not been edited will be serialized exactly as it was loaded from disk. This is useful when your content is managed in a version control systems, as it avoids introducing insignificant whitespace differences between version, which in turn makes diff output easier to read.

Entering whitespace in Author mode

Oxygen XML Developer plugin controls the entry of whitespace characters in Author mode according the XML whitespace rules, which means it will not let you insert insignificant whitespace. This means that it will not let you insert extra line-breaks or spaces inside a typical paragraph element, for instance. (Any such whitespace would be normalized away when the document was serialized to XML, so Oxygen XML Developer plugin is saving you from any surprises when this happens.)

Of course, you will legitimately want to enter additional spaces and returns in some cases, such as code samples. Oxygen XML Developer plugin will allow this in elements that are configured as preserve space elements according to the XML whitespace rules. For all of its predefined document types, Oxygen XML Developer plugin is correctly configured to recognize preserve space elements and to allow you to enter additional spaces in them.

If you are using a predefined document type and you are unable to enter additional whitespace, make sure that you are using an element from that document type that is intended to be a preserve-space element.

If you are using a custom document type, make sure that it is configured correctly so that Oxygen XML Developer plugin recognizes that the current element is a preserve-space element.