Block elements

Inline markup nests freely mid-paragraph: <b>, <i>, <u>, <s>, <font color size>, <a href>, <br/>, <p/> (paragraph break — see paragraph-spacing), <field name> (a page-counter placeholder), and <inline> (an inline-block — set any element in the flow).

align positions lines within the block's own box, which is as wide as its widest line. So align="right" in a shrink-to-fit row aligns the lines relative to each other, not to the row's right edge — to push the whole block to an edge, give it a width (style:width) or a stretching parent (an <expander/> beside it, a cross="stretch" column). A table cell or the full-width page column already provides that box, so alignment fills there.

A bare <line/> in a stretched column is a full-width divider. Drawn as a stroke (not a filled rect), so it can dash. stroke / stroke-width match <circle>, so the outline vocabulary is the same across both shapes.

With neither fill nor stroke, a circle defaults to a solid black disc.

One of width / height is enough — the other is derived from the image's natural aspect ratio. The CLI reads that from the file; the browser has no filesystem, so it resolves src as a URL (relative paths from the site root, e.g. assets/press.jpg → /assets/press.jpg), pre-measures the image, and hands the size to the layout. Give both only to deliberately distort.

Any child may carry flex="n" to grow into leftover space.

Equal columns: give children flex="1". <expander/> is a contentless spring.

Children are anchored at the top-left and each is offered the full space; the stack shrink-wraps to the largest layer. When the content overruns the page, each layer paginates independently — its remainder continues on the next page in the same z-position — so a short background layer paints only on the first page. A background that must repeat on every page belongs in <layout>, not here.

Sugar over the same machinery the style: box model builds — richer effects (shadows, per-side borders, clipping) are still available via style: on the same <box>.

A <box> collapses its content like any container: several children stack as a column, a single child is used as-is, and bare text is wrapped as a paragraph — so <box padding="10px">Just text</box> needs no inner <text>.

Sub-tags: <header> (rows repeated on every page), <row>, and <cell> — cells take colspan, rowspan, valign (top | middle/center | bottom), and background. A <header> or <row> carries the text style for its cells — font, size, bold, italic, color, and a background band — and those cascade to every cell's content (cell beats row beats the document default), reaching nested <text> and inline runs that don't set their own; align stays per-cell, since columns differ. A <header> accepts its cells two ways: wrap them in a <row> (use this for a multi-row header), or — the common case — list <cell>s directly inside <header>, and it reads as a single styled row (the example below uses this shorthand).

A single row taller than the page splits across pages; rowspan cells group their rows into a section that moves together.

Column widths come from the columns spec. A fixed length (100px) claims its size. An auto column is measured and sized to its content — the widest cell, shrinking toward its longest word only if the row would otherwise overflow. A fraction (*, 2*) splits whatever width is left after the fixed and auto columns, by weight. auto is served before fractions, so columns="auto 1*" is the common "label hugs, body fills" pair; a table of only auto columns shrinks to fit its content. With no columns attribute — or for any column the spec doesn't reach — every such column is an equal * fraction, so the grid divides the full width evenly. (Content sizing reads non-spanning cells; a colspan cell lays out into whatever its columns resolve to.)

edge-padding gives the content breathing room at the table's left and right edges without pulling the backgrounds in: it insets only the leftmost cell's left and the rightmost cell's right content, so a full-width header fill or row stripe still reaches the page edge while the text sits in from it. (cell-padding insets every cell on all sides; edge-padding is the extra outer gutter.)

The border spec controls which lines draw. List a thickness, a color, and any of grid (all lines, the default), rows (horizontal lines between rows), cols (vertical lines between columns), outer (just the frame), or none — naming one turns the rest off. So border="0.5pt #ccc rows" draws only row separators, and border="0.5pt #ccc rows outer" adds the frame. (border="0.5pt" with a separate border-color still works.) Row backgrounds and stripes fill edge-to-edge and run continuously between rows — the lines and frame paint over them — so turning a line off never leaves a seam. header-border="false" drops just the header/body line, letting a colored header run straight into the body.

style: works at three levels. The table and each cell are real boxes, so they take the full box model (style:background, padding, border, radius, box-shadow, …) — the table around the whole grid, a cell around its content. A row is painted as a band: it takes the box decorations (background, border, radius, box-shadow), vertical padding (which grows the band and insets its content), and margin — vertical margin opens transparent gaps above/below the band; horizontal margin indents the row into a detached card, stealing the width from the fractional columns first, then the trailing ones. (A margined row leaves the table's grid lines and shows its own style:border instead.) Horizontal padding is still ignored on a row — its cells sit in the shared columns; use cell-padding or a horizontal margin instead. Row margin applies to ordinary, non-rowspan rows.

Bare cell text resolves <text> defaults: a <defaults><text font="…"/></defaults> applies to <cell>foo</cell> just as it would to a standalone <text>.

Pagination is by whole item; an <item> taller than the page is dropped (like an over-tall table row). Numbering stays continuous across a page break.

Same idea as flex on an empty element; any child can carry flex="n" directly.