README.md

VMPrint Authoring Guide

This directory is the practical guide to authoring VMPrint documents with AST 1.1.

Use it in this order:

1. 01-your-first-document
2. 02-styles-and-text
3. 03-stories-strips-and-zones
4. 04-headers-footers-and-page-control - running regions, odd-sized pages, and partial simulation
5. 05-images-tables-and-overlays
6. 06-scripting

How this guide differs from the reference:

• AST Reference is the contract
• this guide is the teaching path
• the examples here prefer AST 1.1

Design stance:

• the AST is the one public source format
• the engine normalizes it internally
• authoring should stay familiar where that helps
• authoring should resist fake DOM hierarchy where it hides the real spatial model

If you only want one takeaway before diving in:

• use normal flow for ordinary content
• use list for bullets, ordered numbering, nested lists, and custom generated markers
• use story for linked multi-column flow
• use strip for one-row aligned bands
• use zone-map for independent regions, including offset rectangular region fields

One more important note:

• authors work with story, strip, zone-map, and the rest of the AST
• the engine may think in terms of a larger continuous world underneath
• you do not need to author a raw world-map directly