Home → Questions →

Header/footer formatting

• Edit

Mark

14 Nov, 2013 03:06 PM

I'd like to be able to format the text in the header and footer, for example:-

* different size and color from body
* more margin/padding between footer and body

Is there something in the stylesheet (or somewhere else) which will let me do this?

I would also like to have a multiline footer, but adding '\n' didn't work - is there a way to spread footer text over multiple lines?

Lastly, is there a way to use defined metadata (like %title, %version) in the document itself similar to how I can insert it in the footer?

1. Support Staff 1 Posted by Fletcher on 14 Nov, 2013 10:06 PM

   

   Thanks for writing in.

   There is not currently a way to change font/color/padding. This may or may not change in the future.

   Since the padding/margins can't change, multiline headers aren't supported as it would not work properly.

   Use of metadata is described in the preference pane. ;)

   Remember, the primary purpose of MMD Composer is to assist in converting MMD text into other document formats. It is not a "word processor". Things like headers and footers are best handled in the output format's native approach (e.g. LaTeX, OpenDocument). The header support included in Composer is basically a stopgap measure since CSS headers/footers are still not properly supported in most (all?) browsers. If you need finer control over headers and footers, you might be better off exporting from MMD to OpenDocument files, for example, where the headers could include styled text, graphics, etc. Same with LaTeX. Or with RTF, but I've ranted enough elsewhere about the limitations of RTF.

   F-

   • Edit

2. 2 Posted by Mark on 15 Nov, 2013 08:49 AM

   

   Thank you for your reply.

   Maybe MMD isn't the right tool for the job... I just love the simplicity and lack of bloat compared to fully fledged document solutions. MarkDown (in general) works great, but lack of footers makes it harder to use MD for documents I will send out. MMD Composer comes close... really the only serious 'niggle' is that there is hardly any space separating the footer from the body.

   At least now I know I am not missing anything in that respect :-)

   Re. metadata... I've got it working fine in the footers, but that method didn't work for inserting metadata into the printed document body. What I'd like to do is to define, say, title and version in metadata and be able to use those in the document body as well as in the footer.

   Or is that out of scope too ;-)

   • Edit

3. Support Staff 3 Posted by Fletcher on 15 Nov, 2013 07:54 PM

   

   Don't forget you can use CSS to adjust the margins of the document, which would leave more room around the footer/header.

   I am *considering* a feature for MMD to make use of metadata, but I worry about complexity and feature-bloat.

   • Edit

4. Fletcher closed this discussion on 15 Nov, 2013 07:54 PM.

5. Mark re-opened this discussion on 16 Nov, 2013 06:20 PM

6. 4 Posted by Mark on 16 Nov, 2013 06:20 PM

   

   Thanks. I tried using CSS to add margin and/or padding. It worked fine for top/left/right but didn't seem to add anything to the bottom of the page. I was applying the padding to the css body element... is there a more appropriate element corresponding to a page?

   It would be great (for me) if I could use metadata in the document, but completely understand the need to avoid too much bloat. The last thing I want is for MMD to turn into the full blown word processors I am trying to avoid!

   • Edit

7. Support Staff 5 Posted by Fletcher on 18 Nov, 2013 02:38 AM

   

   I have been unsuccessful in having a header/footer applied to every page of a multipage document using CSS 3 thus far. I found solutions that come close, but miss in one way or another. It is not clear to me why this hasn't been fixed yet.

   I'm testing a metadata feature that basically allows `[%foo]` to be replaced with the value for the metadata key `foo`. I am concerned about bloat, but agree that this can be pretty useful, and may be used to replace demand for other features.

   • Edit

8. Fletcher closed this discussion on 18 Nov, 2013 02:38 AM.

9. Mark re-opened this discussion on 18 Nov, 2013 08:19 AM

10. 6 Posted by Mark on 18 Nov, 2013 08:19 AM

    

    Great - I look forward to to add metadata if/when it gets past your testing.

    Thank you for your help.

    • Edit

11. Fletcher closed this discussion on 20 Nov, 2013 01:06 AM.