Glossary
One-line definitions for every term in the document model docs.
This page gives a one-line definition for every term used across the document model docs.
| Term | One-line definition |
|---|---|
| Document | The root of your tree, one per file. It holds the title, author, and the rest of the PDF metadata, and every Layout. |
| Layout | A page design that holds its own content: page size, page-level scaffolding, and any Flows. A Layout with no Flow is a single fixed page; otherwise each Flow paginates its content. Produces its own run of pages. |
| Flow | A region whose content paginates across pages. Everything inside it that is not its Stream is scaffolding that repeats on every page; the stream's items appear once and flow. |
| Stream | A marker pinpointing where a scaffolded Flow's items land among its repeating markup. A bare Flow uses its own children as the stream and needs no Stream. |
| Bare Flow | A Flow with no Stream. Its own children are the stream, injected with no wrapper. |
| Scaffolded Flow | A Flow that wraps its stream in a Stream inside surrounding markup. The markup outside the Stream repeats on each page. |
| Frame | A measured region inside a Layout. A Flow placed inside one overflows against that region's bounds instead of the whole page, and sibling content can size against the region. |
| PageBreak | A marker in a Flow's stream that forces a page boundary, regardless of fit. |
| Scaffolding | Wrapper markup (table headers, list shells, page headers and footers) that repeats across the pages its owner produces. It is any HTML you write inside a Layout, Frame, or Flow that is not the Stream, and it is not a model type. |
| Pagination | The page-level loop: when a page fills, Format opens a new one. |
| Splitting | The item-level question: when one item is too tall, can it break across the page boundary? |
Related
Document model overview · Types · Scaffolding · Pagination · Splitting · Styling pages
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