`<lines>`

Lines are lines of text where white space is significant. The <lines> element can be used to represent dialogs, poetry, or other text fragments where line breaks are significant.

Rendering expectations

Processors SHOULD preserve the line breaks and spaces that are present in the content of a <lines> element.

The contents of the <lines> element is typically rendered in a non-monospaced font.

Content model

(Text | <cite> | <include> | <keyword> | <ph> | <strong> | <em> | <b> | <i> | <line-through> | <overline> | <sup> | <sub> | <tt> | <u> | <q> | <term> | <text> | <tm> | <xref> | <data> | <sort-as> | <foreign> | <draft-comment> | <fn> | <indexterm> | <required-cleanup> )*

Zero or more

Inheritance

- topic/lines

The <lines> element is a base element type. It is defined in the topic module.

Attributes

The following attributes are available on this element: display attributes, universal attributes, and @xml:space.

The following attributes are available on this element: universal attributes and the attributes defined below.

@expanse (display attributes)

Specifies the horizontal placement of the element. The following values are valid:

column: Indicates that the element is aligned with the current column margin.
page: Indicates that the element is placed on the left page margin for left-to-right presentation or the right page margin for right-to-left presentation.
spread: Indicates that the object is rendered across a multi-page spread. If the output format does not have anything that corresponds to spreads, then spread has the same meaning as page.
textline: Indicates that the element is aligned with the left (for left-to-right presentation) or right (for right-to-left presentation) margin of the current text line and takes indentation into account.
-dita-use-conref-target: See Using the -dita-use-conref-target value for more information.

For <table>, in place of the @expanse attribute that is used by other DITA elements, the @pgwide attribute is used in order to conform to the OASIS Exchange Table Model.

Some processors or output formats might not support all values.

@frame (display attributes)

Specifies which portion of a border surrounds the element. The following values are valid:

all: Indicates that a line is rendered at the top, bottom, left, and right of the containing element.

bottom: Indicates that a line is rendered at the bottom of the containing element.

none: Indicates that no lines are rendered.

sides: Indicates that a line is rendered at the left and right of the containing element.

top: Indicates that a line is rendered at the top of the containing element.
topbot: Indicates that a line is rendered at the top and bottom of the containing element.
-dita-use-conref-target: See Using the -dita-use-conref-target value for more information.

Some processors or output formats might not support all values.

@scale (display attributes)

Specifies the percentage by which fonts are resized in relation to the normal text size. The value of this attribute is a positive integer. When used on <table> or <simpletable>, the following values are valid: 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, 100, 110, 120, 140, 160, 180, 200, and -dita-use-conref-target.

This attribute is primarily useful for print-oriented display. Some processors might not support all values.

If the @scale attribute is specified on an element that contains an image, the image is not scaled. The image is scaled only if a scaling property is explicitly specified for the <image> element.

@xml:space

Specifies how to handle white space in the current element. This attribute is provided on <pre>, <lines>, and on elements specialized from those. It ensures that parsers respect white space that is part of the data in those elements, including line-end characters. When defined, it has a fixed value of preserve, making it a default property of the element that cannot be changed or deleted by authors.

Example

This section is non-normative.

In the following code sample, a <lines> element contains the text of [Buffalo Bill 's], a poem by e. e. cummings:

<lines>Buffalo Bill ’s
defunct
               who used to
               ride a watersmooth-silver
                                                                  stallion
and break onetwothreefourfive pigeonsjustlikethat
                                                                                         Jesus

he was a handsome man 
                                                  and what i want to know is
how do you like your blue-eyed boy
Mister Death</lines>