Creating New Tags

Creating new tags in InCopy is done through the Tags palette (Figure 7.1), which is accessed from the Window menu or by pressing Command-Option-F5/Control-Alt-F5. The Tags palette will already be populated with the Root element, which is the top-level element in your XML structure. Think of the Root as the container for the rest of your document that can't be removed or deleted.

Figure 7.1. The first time you open the Tags palette it's empty except for the Root element.

From the Tags palette, there are two ways to create a new tag. One is to click on the New tag button at the bottom of the Tags palette (Figure 7.2). A new tag with a preassigned color appears in the Tags palette ready for you to type in a tag name of your choice. After you've typed in a name, press the Enter/Return key, and the tag is added to the tags list in the palette in alphabetical order.

Figure 7.2. Click the New tag button and give the tag a logical name.

Tip

When creating a new tag, bear in mind that XML tag names must be unique and also cannot contain punctuation or spaces, so sub-head or sub_head is fine, but sub head or head, sub is not. Tag names can only begin with a letter, an underscore, or a colon, which can be followed by letters, numbers, underscores, hyphens, periods, and colons. Tag colors need not be unique, but we find it helpful to assign a unique color to each XML tag.

You can also use the Tags palette menu to create a new tag. Choose New Tag from the palette menu and in the New Tag dialog (Figure 7.3) type in a name for the new tag and choose a color from the pull-down menu. If you prefer to control which color is assigned to which tag, this is the best way to assert immediate control over tag color.

Figure 7.3. Use the New Tag command in the Tags palette menu to assign a name and color to a new tag in one step.

To change either a tag's name or its color, double-click on its name in the Tags palette or select the tag in the Tags palette and choose Tag Options from the palette menu. Both of these options are available in the Tag Options dialog.