Options Dialog

Select this check box if you want Contributor to reload documents automatically.

Select this check box if you want Contributor to periodically auto-save any open files. You can specify the number of minutes that should elapse between each auto-save.

You can have multiple files of all types open in the interface at the same. By default, when you open a new file, other documents that are already open remain open. However, you can change this behavior so that files already open in the interface are automatically closed when you open a new document.

You can use any of the following options:

• Close others This option automatically closes all other open documents.
• Close others with no changes This option automatically closes all other open documents that do not have unsaved changes. If you have files open where changes have been made but not saved, those files will remain open until you save and close them.
• Close others with same extension This option automatically closes all other open documents that share the same file extension.
• Close others with same extension and no changes This option is the same as the previous option, except that files with unsaved changes will not automatically be closed. Those files remain open until you save and close them.

There are some dialogs in Contributor that open just once to give you a message or warning when something changes or you switch modes. These dialogs have a check box labeled "Show this dialog." If you deselect that check box, you will not see the dialog again. However, you can use this reset feature to display that dialog (and all other "Show Once" dialogs) again the next time.

Starting with Contributor 6, images with a very low DPI are rendered more accurately in the XML Editor (WYSIWYG) and PDF output, usually resulting in slightly larger and more blurry images (as is consistent with their lower DPI). Therefore, if you upgrade from an older version to Contributor 6 or higher, you might notice images that looked a certain size before now look larger and more blurry (because their true DPI is being rendered more precisely). The best solution, and a long-term one, is to replace your lower-DPI images with higher-DPI images to be used in print output. But you also have the option to revert back to previous version behavior. If you select this option, the newer, more precise resizing from newer versions of the software is used. If you do not select this option, the behavior of older versions is used.

You can select an option to display the interface with ribbons or with the classic tool strip. See Switching Between Ribbons and the Tool Strip.

• Enable Drag and Drop Text Place a check mark in this check box to enable the drag-and-drop feature. When enabled, you can highlight and drag text to move it within topics.
• Show web images Select this check box to show or hide web-linked images in the XML Editor. If you have many image tags that link to websites, slow website response times may slow down your work. Therefore, you might want to disable the rendering of such images in the XML Editor.
• Insert Empty Alt Text Select this check box to automatically add an empty alt tag to images when you insert them into a topic or snippet (unless you specifically add an alt tag to an image).
• Replace straight quotes with smart quotes Select this check box to use single and double curly smart quotes instead of straight quotes when you type in the XML Editor. This option is disabled by default. See Using Smart Quotes.

• Show style previews in UI When you attempt to apply a style to content using the Style drop-down in the Home ribbon, the Styles window pane, or the floating Style Picker, previews of the various styles are shown by default. This gives you an idea of how each style looks before you apply it to the content.

  

  If you prefer not to see style previews in these areas of the user interface, remove the check mark from this option.

  With this option disabled, all of the styles will be presented as plain text when you select them.

  

• Enable ClearType Font Smoothing Displays text in a "ClearType" font, which appears to "smooth out" the words and make them easier to read. ClearType is a software technology developed by Microsoft that improves the readability of text on existing LCDs (Liquid Crystal Displays), such as laptop screens, Pocket PC screens, and flat panel monitors. With ClearType font technology, the words on your computer screen look almost as sharp and clear as those printed on a piece of paper. ClearType works by accessing the individual vertical color stripe elements in every pixel of an LCD screen. Before ClearType, the smallest level of detail that a computer could display was a single pixel, but with ClearType running on an LCD monitor, we can now display features of text as small as a fraction of a pixel in width. The extra resolution increases the sharpness of the tiny details in text display, making it much easier to read over long durations.

• Enable GDI+ Text Renderer Toggles between Microsoft Windows Graphics Device Interface (GDI) and GDI+ in terms of how content is rendered on your monitor. What is the difference between GDI and GDI+? The bottom line is that GDI+ improves the quality of the rendering somewhat, but it can be slower than GDI. For more information about GDI+, see:

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  http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms533797.aspx

A global dictionary is a file that contains words and can be used for spell checking by any Contributor file you open on your computer.

By default, a new global dictionary is stored in your AppData folder, like all of your built-in dictionaries.

However, you can select Use custom location to choose a different location for your global dictionary. For example, you might be working with a team of writers and want to make sure you are all using the same spellings for certain terms. By choosing a network directory, your entire team can use the same global dictionary. After selecting this option, click to choose the location. See Choosing the Location for Global Dictionaries.

This section displays information about the dictionaries that are installed and therefore available to your files. You can import additional dictionaries if you want.

• Language This column lists the names of all languages with dictionaries that are installed on your computer. Dictionaries are stored in your AppData Windows folder.
• Code Displays the code for each language.
• Spell Green dots indicate which dictionaries support spell checking.
• Hyphen Green dots indicate which dictionaries support hyphenators. A hyphenator is used to automatically hyphenate words in an editor based on particular word patterns, as outlined in the dictionary file. (Hyphenators are important only for certain languages.) For more information about hyphenation patterns in different languages, see:http://www.tug.org/TUGboat/tb27-1/tb86nemeth.pdf
• Thesaurus Green dots indicate which dictionaries contain a thesaurus. See Thesaurus.
• Description This column provides a short description of each dictionary.
• Import Dictionaries You can download more dictionaries from OpenOffice.org. After you download a new dictionary, you can install it by clicking this button. See Importing Dictionaries.

This filters the list of languages to show only those that are supported with the spell check feature.

Select whether the custom shortcut will be available throughout the interface (Global) or just in the XML Editor. The options available on the tab change depending on your selection. See Changing Hot Keys.

Select the option whose hot keys you want to change. You can click the Option or Shortcut column headings to sort the columns alphabetically. This can help you more easily find a command or see which shortcut keys are free to use.

Select the hot key that you want to assign to the option.

If you create a shortcut that is already being used, this field displays the conflicting command.

You can select the Control Key, Shift Key, and/or Alt Key check boxes if you want to use a combination for the shortcut. For example, if you select D from the list to the right and add check marks to the Shift Key and Alt Key boxes, the new shortcut for the option will be SHIFT+ALT+D.

You can assign a hot key to a command that does not appear in the grid above by clicking Unlisted Commands. In the Other Commands dialog, select a command, then click OK. The unlisted command appears in the grid.

As you enter index keywords in the Index window pane, the application recognizes if you have created a similar index keyword. The similar keywords appear in a list just below the entry field. You can quickly select one of the keywords from the list instead of typing the entire word manually. This option turns this feature on and off.

When you first install and launch Contributor, your login user name is captured and stored in the Options dialog (File > Options). You can change the user name (for Contributor purposes) in this field. See Changing Your User Name and Initials.

The first two letters of the user name are also stored as your initials. This information is employed whenever you use the track changes and annotations features. For example, if you insert an annotation in a topic, your initials are displayed at the beginning of the comment so that other users know where the annotation came from. You can change your initials in this field. See Changing Your User Name and Initials.

You can change the way tracked changes are displayed in the interface. See Changing the Display of Tracked Changes.

• Display all changes in balloons If you select this option, all changes—text and formatting—will be shown in balloons in the sidebar.

  

• Display only format changes in balloons If you select this option, changes that include content only (or content plus formatting) will be shown inline. But changes that contain formatting modifications only will be shown in balloons in the sidebar.

  

• Display all non-format changes inline If you select this option, all text changes will be shown inline. Balloons are not used.

  

• Change Bar Select whether or not you want to turn on change bars. If you turn on change bars, a bar appears on the left side of the line where a change has been made.

  

Displays the name of the plugin, based on the DLL file you have created and added to the Contributor installation folder in Windows. See Plug-In API.

Displays a description of the plugin.

Displays the version number of the plugin.