DTD. You can find links to resources on document encoding in Appendix C, "General Resources." Tracing Image The third option available within the Category pane is Tracing Image. As I mentioned earlier, you can use the Tracing Image option to set a temporary background image on the page. By setting the transparency of the background image, you can then use Dreamweaver elements, such as layers, to design around your background image as if you were drawing on tracing paper sitting on top of an original document. We'll cover this option with much more detail in Chapter 11, "Layers in Dreamweaver." Working with Text Now that you've successfully set the properties for the page, its time to start adding content to it. This next section is devoted entirely to text formatting within the Document window. Although most features are derived from and may seem similar to popular word processing programs, you'll definitely find limitations and workarounds a necessity in some cases. Copying and Pasting Text from External Sources The first step to working with content in Dreamweaver is actually getting that content into the development environment. Technically, you could just place your cursor in the Document window and begin typing. A more realistic approach, however, is to copy the contents from an external source (such as a text file) and paste it in the Document window. At our fictitious company Dorknozzle.com, Cammy the Content Manager is responsible for creating all corporate content. When the content has been written for a specific page, Cammy the Content Manager emails you the text files for placement on the intranet site. After you have the files, you place the text files in an Assets folder. What next? Again, you could just print out the content Cammy sent you, tape it to your computer screen, and type in the Document window what appears on the printed page. Not likely right? Fortunately Dreamweaver includes numerous options for easily adding content to your page from external sources. The most obvious option is to simply open the text file in Dreamweaver, select all the text (choose Edit, Select All or press Ctrl+A for Windows or Option+A on a Mac), copy the text (choose Edit, Copy or press Ctrl+C on Windows or Option+C on a Mac), and then paste it into the page (choose Edit, Paste or press Ctrl+P on Windows or Option+P on a Mac). Before we jump ahead however, note that other options for pasting text into your page also exist, these include: Paste: Pastes the copied text into the page with minimal formatting. Formatting is limited to paragraph breaks. Paste Special: When this option is selected, the Paste Special dialog appears. From this dialog you have the option of pasting the raw, unformatted text only (shows as a giant paragraph with no formatting or line breaks), text with complete structure (includes paragraphs, lists, tables, and so on), text with structure and basic formatting (includes bold, italic, and so on), and text with structure plus full formatting (includes bold, italic, styles, and more). From this dialog you also have the option of deciding to retain any line breaks that are added to the text by the source text editor. If you're copying directly from Microsoft Word, you have the option of allowing Dreamweaver to automatically clean up Word's paragraph spacing. As an example, try opening the file titled welcome.txt from the Assets folder. Copy the text from the file by choosing the Select All option from the Edit menu. Now switch back to your web page and choose Paste from the Edit menu. As Figure 3.6 shows, the text is inserted into the page with minimal formatting. Figure 3.6. The copied text is inserted into the web page with minimal formatting. [View full size image]