Reference Topic

Full List of Marker Fields

The following tables list all of the markers that are available in HotDocs. The markers are rules (part of the idea of applying regions and rules to your template) that tell HotDocs to apply final formatting to text in your assembled document post assembly.

The majority of marker fields are available in the Field Editor, both when editing a template and when working in Component Studio.

The markers available fall under three categories:

• Formatting Markers
• Punctuation Markers
• Punctuated List Markers

There are also some additional marker fields which are not directly available in Field Editor.

Formatting Markers

Formatting markers help you change the appearance of the text. These are found under Add formatting markers in the Field Editor when editing a template. 

Character Formatting

The following markers change the look of the text.

Name	Marker	What it Does
Bold	[.b]/[.be]	Applies bold formatting to the enclosed word or group of words
Italic	[.i]/[.ie]	Applies italic formatting to a word or group of words
Underline	[.u]/[.ue]	Applies underline formatting to a word or group of words
Strike-through	[.x]/[.xe]	Crosses out a word or group of words
Hidden	[.h]/[.he]	Applies the hidden text property to a word or group of words The marker [.h]/[.he] is not allowed in prompts, dialog titles, or Additional Information fields.
Font Size	[.z]/[.ze]	Increases or decreases the font size for a word or group of words by a  percentage you specify. The marker [.z +Size] is a percent increase in the current size. The marker, [.z -Size] is a percent decrease in the current size. (When you select this option, HotDocs displays a dialog box asking you to specify these properties.)

Capitalization

The following markers change the capitalization of the text.

Name	Marker	What It Does
Capitalize next character	[.c]	Capitalizes the word immediately following the code
All Caps	[.a]/[.ae]	Capitalizes every letter in the selected text
Leading Caps	[.l]/[.le]	Capitalizes the first letter of each word in the enclosed text
Small Caps	[.s]/[.se]	Capitalizes each lowercase letter in the enclosed text and displays them at a smaller font size. For example, "The Quick Brown Fox" would become "THE QUICK BROWN FOX".

Actions

This is the marker that turns text into a clickable web link.

Name	Marker	What It Does
Web Link Marker	[.w "URL"]/[.we]	Inserts a Web link. Enter the link text between the two markers, e.g. [.w "www.exampleurl.com"]/[.we]

Punctuation Markers

Punctuation markers help you insert characters and spaces into your text. These are found under Add punctuation markers in the Field Editor when editing a template. 

Conditional Text Insertion

The following marker inserts characters depending on 

Name	Marker	What It Does
An	[.an]	Inserts a or an, depending on whether the word that follows begins with a consonant or a vowel.

Conditional Punctuation

Sentence Punctuation

Sometimes you need answers in the assembled document to be punctuated correctly, but you can't anticipate how users will enter the answer. To ensure text in the document is correct, you can use markers to merge the correct punctuation.

For example, say the user enters a description but doesn't include the end punctuation in the answer. Using a marker, you can merge the punctuation in the document if the user doesn't. (If the user does include the punctuation, the marker won't merge anything.) The following script demonstrates this:

The property, which is located at [Property Address], is described as [Property Description][.]

The following markers insert punctuation into sentences.

Name	Marker	What it Does
Period	[.]	Inserts a period if no other punctuation precedes it
Colon	[:]	Inserts a colon if no other punctuation precedes it
Exclamation Mark	[!]	Inserts an exclamation point if no other punctuation precedes it
Question Mark	[?]	Inserts a question mark if no other punctuation precedes it
Comma	[,]	Inserts a comma if no other punctuation precedes it
Semicolon	[;]	Inserts a semicolon if no other punctuation precedes it

Breaks

The following markers insert special characters and page formatting such as line breaks and paragraph marks.

Name	Marker	What it Does
Line Break	[.lb]	Inserts a line break
Page Break	[.pb]	Inserts a page break
Paragraph Break	[.pm]	Inserts a paragraph mark
Merge Paragraphs these markers are new to Author and did not exist in HD Developer 11. also, do we want to call these combine paragraph? .cp?	[.mp]	When placed at the end of a paragraph, combines that paragraph with the following paragraph by removing the paragraph boundary. HotDocs then applies the style, spacing, etc. of the first paragraph to the newly combined paragraph. these markers are new to Author and did not exist in HD Developer 11.
Merge Paragraphs - Reverse	[.mr]	When placed at the end of a paragraph, combines that paragraph with the following paragraph by removing the paragraph boundary. HotDocs then applies the style, spacing, etc. of the second paragraph to the newly combined paragraph. these markers are new to Author and did not exist in HD Developer 11.

Punctuated List Markers

You can punctuate a list of answers created without using a REPEAT instruction. For example, say you need to list a client name, the client's spouse's name, and the children's names. Such a list could look like this in an assembled document:

 

The client's family consists of Tim Anderson, spouse Lori Anderson, and children Jessica Anderson, Aubrey Anderson, and Lance Anderson.

 

 You can use markers to merge punctuation for non-repeated lists in the template. Using the markers below, you can define the punctuation mark that separates items in the list as well as define the conjunction (for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so) used for the list. This is useful when you have separate answers that are being placed conditionally in list format.

Additional Marker Fields

The following marker fields are not available from the Field Editor directly. To use these, you add a placeholder field for an other expression, then in the Expression field, type the desired marker exactly as it appears below.

HotDocs adds the field, including the appropriate delimiters, to the template or property.

Name	Marker	What it Does
Left Apostrophe	.la	Inserts a left apostrophe, an opening single quote mark
Right Apostrophe	.ra	Inserts a right apostrophe, a closing single quote mark
Left Quote	.lq	Inserts a left double quotation mark
Right Quote	.rq	Inserts a right double quotation mark
Pilcrow (paragraph sign)	.ps	Inserts a paragraph character
Section Sign	.ss	Inserts a section symbol character
Tab Character	.tc	Inserts a tab character
Non-breaking Space	.ns	Inserts a non-breaking space character
Non-breaking Hyphen	.nh	Inserts a non-breaking hyphen character
Optional Hyphen	.oh	Inserts an optional hyphen character

See also:

• Field Editor: Formatting Markers
• Field Editor: Punctuation Markers
• Field Editor: List Punctuation Marker
• Field Editor: Other Expression