Texts

location

To edit a Text, select its parent project in the backend and choose Texts from the sidebar. Texts can be edited by any user who can edit the parent Project.

What is a Text?#

Texts refer to content that is displayed in the Manifold Reader. Each Text belongs to a specific Project and Projects can contain many Texts. Likewise, Texts can contain one or more sections (i.e., chapters, articles, etc.). Each individual XHTML file in an EPUB is considered by Manifold to be a Text section.

Within the Manifold Reader, Texts serve as a base, onto which Resource annotations and reader engagements can be layered.

Managing Project Texts#

Because Texts belong to Projects, they are managed from the parent Project’s “Texts” pane in the backend. Within this view, you can add Texts to the Project, create Text categories, assign Texts to those categories, change the order of Texts, edit Texts, and delete Texts.

Interface Overview#

Like many backend views, the Text editing interface is composed of three parts: the header, the sidebar, and the editing pane.

Header#

The header for the Texts view is the same as for all other Project-level Sidebar items, denoting the title and subtitle of the Project along with buttons to Preview or Delete it.

When individual Text records are accessed, the header adjusts to the context and makes available options to Preview or Delete the selected Text, enable the system to create an EPUB of the Text, or secure the source file originally used to create the Text:

The Enable EPUB button functions as a toggle. When activated, the text of the button will change to Disable EPUB and Manifold will create an EPUB of the Text regardless of the format in which it was ingested (e.g., Word or Google Documents).

Every five minutes Manifold looks for Texts that have this setting enabled. If a Text is newly enabled, Manifold will generate an EPUB of the Text. If the Text has been updated, Manifold will re-create the EPUB so that accurately reflects any changes.

When the EPUB for the Text has been generated, a Download EPUB button will appear, from which the Manifold-generated EPUB can be secured.

If you used an EPUB to initially create the Text and then toggles this setting on, Manifold will create its own EPUB. Those two files would be very similar but potentially not exact matches. The original source EPUB is still retained, and available through the Download Source button.

The Disable EPUB button toggles this process off and removes the Download EPUB option.

Manifold retains the source files that were uploaded to create each Text. The Download Source button packages those files up and delivers them to your device in a ZIP archive.

Manifold does not provide source files for Texts that have been ingested via URL (e.g., Google Docs). In such situations this button is labeled as Visit Source and functions as a link that directs your browser to the page from which the remotely hosted source file lives.

Sidebar#

The Sidebar’s Text menu opens a view where new Texts and Categories can be added and reordered and where Text records can be accessed. When an individual Text record is selected, the Sidebar will display new options specific that Text, described in the Editing a Text section below.

Editing Pane#

To the right of the sidebar, the Editing Pane displays three buttons labeled Ingest New Text, Create New Text, and Create New category, respectively, that allow you to load a text from your device to the system, create an entirely new text within the system, or create category containers to group and associate texts with one another. Below those, the system lists all the Texts and Categories that have already been added to the Project.

Categories appear as containers into which Texts can be moved. Each Category has a header ribbon that displays its name and buttons to (1) delete, (2) edit, or (3) reorder the category, designated by the trashcan, pencil, and handlebar icons.

All Projects include the Uncategorized Category that cannot be renamed, removed, or reordered.

Newly ingested or created Texts appear in the Uncategorized container by default and render as a horizontal block that includes a thumbnail, title, date stamp, and, the same (1) delete, (2) edit, and (3) reorder buttons that Categories display:

Designated by a trashcan icon, the Delete button removes the associated content from the system, either the Category container or the individual Text. Deleting a Category will not delete Texts nested within it; instead they will be transitioned to the Uncategorized container.
The Edit button displays as a pencil icon. When selected for a Category, the button will open a drawer from the right where you can rename the Category. For Texts, the edit button opens a new view onto the Text’s settings.
The horizontal drag bars are used to Reorder Categories or Texts. When moving Categories, the Texts nested within them will maintain their existing order. Texts can be reordered within Categories or moved from one Category to another. A single Text cannot appear in more than one Category. The drag bars respond to clicking and dragging with your mouse or by pressing the space bar on your keyboard and then using the up or down arrow keys.

Ingesting New Texts#

When you add a Text to Manifold from an already existing source file (e.g., an EPUB or a Word or Google document), the application runs a series of transformations (e.g., converting the document to HTML, adding text nodes, managing styles) that make possible the various features and functionalities on the frontend.

You can add Texts to Projects in one of the following formats:

Reflowable EPUBs
HTML
Markdown
Microsoft Word Documents of the DOCX variety
Google Docs

The system also accepts “Manifest Ingests,” which are an array of acceptable files that have been packaged into a ZIP archive, often with media files and associated stylesheets. Manifold processes these files into the Reader as a single Text with multiple Text sections. See the Create a Manifest Ingest walkthrough in our documentation for more.

Files in formats other than those named above (e.g., PDF, XML, TEI, TEX) cannot be processed into the Manifold Reader.

How to Ingest a Text#

The Ingest New text button opens a drawer from the right where Texts can be added to the system in two ways: by directly loading a file from your system using Upload a File or by referring to one that is remotely hosted with the URL option.

This URL field expects a complete URL that directs Manifold to a specific file or archive that Manifold can Ingest.

After your upload file has cached to the system or a path has been provided in the URL field, the Continue button converts the drawer to a new view with display logs and final options.

The Start Ingestion button kicks off the actual process of converting and bringing the source file into the Manifold Reader. The system must first connect to the Manifold websocket (noted in the Log) before this option is actionable. When completed this button will change to read Complete and direct you back to the Texts views.

The Log sits below these buttons and documents the ingest process, line by line.

The Restart Ingestion option is used by Manifold developers when tweaking code around how Texts are added.

Creating New Texts#

Beginning with Manifold version 8, the system allows users to create new texts entirely within the system. This functionality will be of particular use to those who would prefer an alternative to the existing Manifest Ingest/YAML process and instead build their text within the system—either by authoring those text sections in Manifold’s rich-text or code editor, or by creating text sections from existing source files, like Word and Google documents.

When the Create New Text button is selected the system will slide a drawer open from the right of the screen with three editable fields: Text Title, Cover, and Enter section name.

The value you save to the Text Title field will serve as the title for the text you are creating. That title will appear as such in the list of Texts in this view, in the Manifold Reader’s menu bar, in analytics views, and in any content or reading group blocks that reference the text. This is the only required field in this drawer; the following two are optional, and all three can be adjusted later.

The Cover image serves as a thumbnail for the Text and can be configured to appear in the Texts Content Block on the Project landing page, in lieu of the default thumbnail depicting loose pages. The image saved here will be used as the cover for the text when the Enable EPUB option is selected from the header menu or when a project is exported for preservation purposes.

Image files can be dropped onto the Cover field or selected using your device’s file system by clicking the Upload a File link.

Manifold texts are made up of one or more sections. An ingested EPUB, for example, is one text with multiple sections, with each of the interior XHTML files within that EPUB standing as a section. A Manifest Ingest, is likewise a single text made up of the various sections, sourced from an array of files, described in the YAML file. The final field in this drawer, labeled Enter section name, provides a means to begin scaffolding empty, placeholder sections that can later be authored in the system or created through an ingestion process. After a name value is entered in the field, the Create button beside it can be selected to save that new section to the text. The name of the newly saved section will appear below the field in a list with any other section names that you add in this space. Section names in that list include options to delete or reorder them, using either a mouse or keyboard input. Like other list elements in the Manifold backend, when the drag bars are highlighted with the tab key, the space bar will select them, and the up and down arrows can be used to reorder the section within the list.

When the Save New Text button is selected, the new text will appear in the list of Texts in the main window. If sections were created, those will appear within that new text record’s Sections sidebar list. See details about the Sections sidebar options below.

Text Categories#

Text Categories are a grouping mechanism for Texts. Categories can be configured to display in a variety of ways or used as filters in Texts Content Blocks on Project landing pages (see Layout).

Within the Manifold Reader, Category titles appear in a yellow ribbon at the bottom of the page for member Texts. Category ribbons do not appear for uncategorized Texts or Texts with the Published? field toggled on (see Editing a Text).

The Create a new category button opens a drawer from the right where you can add and name a new category. Once created, the Category container will appear in the editing pane, ready for Texts to be deposited into it.

Editing a Text#

To edit a Text, click on the title or the pencil icon from within the list of the project’s Texts. Each Text loaded to Manifold has its own configurable settings. When you select a Text from the Editing Pane, the view will transform, providing new options in the header (see Interface Overview).

Managing a Text involves viewing and changing its properties through the following editing panes: Analytics, Properties, People, Sections, Table of Contents, Assets, Metadata, Styles, and Reingest. Even when pre-populated by the system, all of the fields in these panes can be modified.

Analytics#

This view displays Text-specific engagement, aggregating user activity into six reports, which can be configured to return information for specific periods of time.

Setting a Date Range#

At the top of the view, the system provides options to configure custom or pre-set date ranges for which the subsequent reports will return values.

The Start and End Date fields are a means to manually set a specific range of time the system will report engagement. Dates can be entered manually in the month, date, year format or selected from the date picker that appears when your cursor lands in the field.

Alternatively, you can Choose a Range Preset that adjusts the reports to pre-defined date ranges: Last week corresponds to the Sunday through Saturday before the current span of days, Last month refers to the entirety of calendar month before the current one, Last 7 days includes the current day as the seventh, and Last 30 days does likewise—day 30 is the current day.

Reports#

Following the date constraint options, the system displays six usage reports, some with multiple data points, reflecting user activity across the instance during the defined time span.

Rendered as a line chart, the Visitors report shows the number of unique visitors accessing the Text during the set time span. Visits are tied to a user’s browser. A user with multiple tabs open to the Text in the same browser will be counted only once. But if the same user accesses the Text from two different browsers, they will be recorded as two different visitors.
The Annotations report is broken into four categories: Annotations, Public, Private, and Reading Groups. The first displays the tally of all annotations added to the Text during the selected time period. The next two categories show the number of annotations made under the banner of My Public Annotations and My Private Annotations in the Reader’s pop-up menu. The last category shows the number all annotations to the Text made within the context of a Reading Group, regardless of the Reading Group’s privacy settings. The value displays in the first category, Annotations, should equal the sum of the other three.
Values shown in the Highlights report corresponds to the total number of passages in the Text that have been highlighted during the selected time period. The system aggregates all of the highlights made to the Text in the value it reports, regardless of privacy setting or affiliation with Reading Groups.
The Shares report displays the current total for the number of times visitors have used the Manifold Share feature in the Reader’s pop-up menu to share the Text section to Twitter or Facebook. The number displayed in the report is not affected by time constraints.
Each time a visitor uses the Reader’s Share feature to create an citation for the Text section, a record is created. The figure in the Citations report represents the total number of citation records currently associated with the Text section. It is not affected by time constraints.
Displayed as a list, the Text Section Views report aggregates the total number of times a specific section within a Text has been viewed during the set timespan. Each time a visitor opens a Text section, the system gives their browser a token associated with the the section. The system calculates the values it displays here by adding together the total number of tokens associated with the section from all the visitors who have accessed it. Data in this report are accurate to within a few moments, and section titles in the list open the Manifold Reader to the selected section.

Exporting Analytics

At present there is no mechanism to export analytics data or mask from tracking the activity of specific users.

Properties#

The settings in this view represent those that most affect how a Text is indexed in Manifold and with external systems.

Title#

A Text’s title can be configured to appear in Table of Contents and Texts Content Blocks on the Project’s landing page. It is also baked into the metadata that Manifold shares with other systems, crawlers, and social media platforms.

Manifold automatically populates this field when the source file describes a title attribute in its structure.

Title Source

Source	Location Notes
EPUB	In the `content.opf` file the title attribute will appear as: `<dc:title id="title">Furious Feminisms</dc:title>`
HTML	For individual HTML Text ingests, the title attribute appears between the `<head>` tags, formatted as `<meta name="dc.title" content="Social Theory for Nonhumans">`. If that element is not present, Manifold will look next at content between the `<title>` tags before assigning a system-generated title.
Markdown	When loading individual Markdown files, the title attribute appears in the document’s header as `title: Metagaming`.
MS Word (DOCX)	The text of the paragraph that has the Word Style `Title` applied to it will be captured as the Text’s `Title` in Manifold.
Google Doc	The title of the document that appears in the upper left of the Google Doc screen is what Manifold sweeps into the `Title` field
Manifest Ingests	In the `meta` section of the YAML file, the title attribute appears as `title: The End of Man`.

Manifold will auto-populate this field with a UUID if it cannot detect the Text’s title.

The content of this field will be encoded as the title of any EPUB that Manifold produces for download or export.

This field accepts Markdown formatting; however, using Markdown here is not recommended as other systems that sweep up the Title may not always honor that encoding.

Subtitle#

A Text’s subtitle will appear with its main title in Table of Contents and Texts Content Blocks on the Project’s landing page. Unlike the main title, it does not get shared in metadata with other platforms or crawlers.

Manifold will not auto-populate this field with metadata from the Text’s source file or with a UUID. The Subtitle field is manual-only entry.

Publication Date#

The Text’s publication date can be entered here manually in the month, date, year format or selected from the date picker that appears when your cursor lands in this field.

Manifold will populate this field when the publication date is included in the source file.

Publication Date Source

Source	Location Notes
EPUB	In the `content.opf` file, Manifold will look for the `<dc:date>2021-02-16</dc:date>` attribute.
HTML	For individual HTML Text ingests, the publication date appears between the `<head>` tags, formatted as `<meta name="dc.date" content="1997-08-29">`.
Markdown	When loading individual Markdown files, the publication date is defined as `date: "2063-04-05"` in the document’s header.
MS Word (DOCX) Google Docs	There is no current way to describe the publication date in Word or Google documents.
Manifest Ingests	In the `meta` section of the YAML file, the publication date is described in this format: `date: "1999-09-09"`

The date stored in this field does not presently render on the site or function for any sorting purposes. It’s stored for likely future use along those lines.

Slug#

A Text slug appears between the read and section components of its URL.

https://{domain-name}/read/{text-slug}/section/{section-UUID}

If left blank, the system will automatically create a slug for each new Text based on its title.

Description#

This is a Markdown-enabled field meant to capture a Text’s abstract. Copy saved here can be configured to display in a Texts Content Block on the Project landing page; it is also baked into the metadata that Manifold shares with other systems, crawlers, and social media platforms. Those other systems will likely not honor Markdown formatting and render the syntax as is.

Manifold will populate this field when this field when a description is included in the source file.

Description Source

Source	Location Notes
EPUB	In the `content.opf` file, Manifold will look for the `<dc:description>This is the description.</dc:description>` attribute.
HTML	For individual HTML Text ingests, the publication date appears between the `<head>` tags, formatted as `<meta name="dc.description" content="Description copy.">`.
Markdown	When loading individual Markdown files, the publication date is defined as `description: "A brief description."` in the document’s header.
MS Word (DOCX) and Google Docs	There is no current way to assign copy as a Text’s description in Word or Google documents.
Manifest Ingests	In the `meta` section of the YAML file, the description attribute is formatted as `description: 'A sample description.'`

Cover#

The Cover image serves as a thumbnail for a specific Text and can be configured to appear in the Texts Content Block on the Project landing page, in lieu of the default thumbnail depicting loose pages.

Image files can be dropped onto the Cover field or selected using your device’s file system by clicking the Upload a File link.

Manifold will automatically sweep EPUBs at ingest for their cover file when they are defined as such in the content.opf file, e.g.:

<item href="{cover-filename}.jpg" id="My_Cover"  media-type="image/jpeg" properties="cover-image"/>

When Manifold creates an EPUB of a Text, for download or export, it will use the image file stored in this field as the cover for the Manifold-generated EPUB.

Manifold does not supply this image with the metadata it shares about the Text with other systems, crawlers, or social media platforms; it sends instead the Project’s Background Image.

Cover Specs

Max-Width	56 px
Height	Automatically adjusts proportionally to width constraint
Orientation	Vertical
Format	GIF, JPEG, JPG, PNG

Cover Image Alt Text#

This field allows you to associate a brief plain-text description of the cover that will be announced to readers using Assistive Technology. Benetech’s DIAGRAM Center site, “How to Describe Images” is a good reference for learning how to craft alt text. We generally recommend that alt text not exceed 150 characters (including spaces).

Published?#

This toggle affects the appearance of a Text in a Texts Content Block on the Project landing page and in the Reader. When this setting is engaged, Manifold will append a “Published” badge to its listing in a Texts Block. In the Reader, the system will remove the yellow ribbon that displays how the Text’s Category.

Section Label#

Manifold includes navigation controls at the bottom of each Text section in the Reader. These controls give readers the means to move forward or backward through a Text. By default these navigation elements are introduced with a heading that reads “Next Chapter.” This field allows you to adjust that language to better reflect the content: e.g., Next Article, Next Essay, Next Section, etc.

It is not possible to remove or adjust the word Next from that heading.

Ignore Access Restrictions?#

Restricted Access Projects require entitlements to view any of their content that doesn’t immediately render on the Project landing page (see Managing Access).

Enabling this toggle overrides that requirement so readers (with or without an entitlement) can access the Text when it appears on the Project landing page, in a Call-to-Action in the Hero or in a Texts or Table of Contents Content Block.

People#

The People sidebar in this view lists the Maker Records associated with a individual Text (see Makers). The listings are broken into two categories: Authors and Contributors, where author listings suggest primary authorship and contributor listings denote secondary attributions. Individual listings begin with an profile image, the Maker’s name, and then options to (1) delete, (2) edit, or (3) reorder the entry:

The Delete button, depicted with an × button, only removes the association between the Maker Record and a specific Text; the Maker record itself is not altered or removed from the system by deleting its association with a Text.
Shown as a pencil icon, the Edit button changes the view, taking you to the Manage Makers page with the edit drawer open to the entry you selected. There you can adjust the Maker’s professional title; first, middle, or last name; and suffix. Users with Reader roles who have been granted Editor Permissions to a Project are not able to edit Maker Records.
The horizontal drag bars can be used to Reorder Maker records within the same category. It is not possible to recategorize an entry from Author to Contributor or vice versa. The drag bars respond to clicking and dragging with your mouse or by pressing the space bar on your keyboard and then using the up or down arrow keys.

Manifold automatically populates the People pane when the Text’s source file provides authorship information in its metadata

Author and Contributor Source

Source	Location Notes
EPUB	In the `content.opf` file, Manifold will look for `<dc:creator id="creator1">John Watson</dc:creator>` and `<dc:contributor id="creator2">Ivy Winters</dc:contributor>` attributes to add listings as `Authors` and `Contributors` respectively.
HTML	For individual HTML Text ingests, the author attributions appear between the `<head>` tags, formatted as: `<meta name="dc.creator" content="Rowan Ono">` and `<meta name="dc.contributor" content="Louise Dash">`.
Markdown	When loading individual Markdown files, authorship is defined as: `creator: Indrid Cold` and `contributor: Ida Davis` in the document’s header.
MS Word (DOCX) and Google Docs	There is no current way to define authorship in Google or Word documents.
Manifest Ingests	In the `meta` section of the YAML file, authorship is nested under the `creators` or `contributors` headings as : `- name: Ivy Winters`

When the system cannot recognize authorship from the source file, already existing Maker Records can be manually associated with a Text by typing names in the Authors or Contributors dropdown fields. New Maker Records cannot be created from this view.

Author listings can be configured to appear in Texts Content Blocks and will appear in auto-generated bibliographic cites the system creates. Those listed as Contributors do not appear in either of those spaces.

Other Authorial Roles

The current Author/Contributor dynamic is based off the EPUB specification. At present, you cannot assign more nuanced roles for Makers (e.g., Editors, Translators, Introducers, etc.).

Sections#

The Sections sidebar within a text record allows users to see the makeup of existing texts and edit those sections directly in the system, using Manifold’s rich-text or code editor. Users can also add new sections to a text from this view through the ingestion of a source file or by creating and authoring the section entirely in Manifold using its editor.

The layout of this view includes two buttons, labeled Ingest New Section and Add New Section, above a list of existing sections within the text. For texts that were originally ingested from a source file (like an EPUB or Manifest Ingest or Word document), the text sections that make up that source file are automatically displayed in the list view here. For newly created texts, if texts sections were added during that process, they too will appear here as named listings with no body content. If a user creates a new text without any sections, the list view here will be empty until a new section is either ingested or added.

Adding Sections to the Text#

When the Ingeset New Section button is selected, the system slides a drawer over from the right where the user can either drag/drop a file from their device, or use their operating system’s file system to select one to ingest. Alternatively there is also a field labeled URL where the direct path of a remotely hosted file can be referenced for ingest. This process is for users who have already existing content they want to make a part of this text.

As such, this interface mirrors, exactly, the interface options for ingesting an entire text, described above, in terms of file expectations and process, with two exceptions:

First, instead of creating a whole text, when a file is ingested in this space it will function as one section of a larger text. While it is possible to have a text with only one section, the expectation would be that a user add that single-section text to the system from the project’s Texts sidebar, one level us, using the Ingest New Text button.

Second, it is not possible to ingest an EPUB or a Manifest Ingest as a single section of a text. EPUBs and Manifest Ingests are whole texts unto themselves and cannot be made to serve as a section of a larger whole. Thus only HTML, Markdown, Word files, and Google Documents are accepted by the system in this space.

Alternatively, it is also possible to add (or create) a new text section without ingesting a source document. This process is for those users who want to author or copy/paste text into Manifold’s code and rich-text editor to author a text section.

When the Add New Section button is selected, a drawer will slide open from the right of the window with one text field and three button options: Section Name, Save and Open in Editor, Save, and Cancel. Section Name is a required field, and the value entered here will appear as the name of the text-section in this backend list view of the text’s sections, in backend analytics views for the text, and in the Manifold reader’s menu bar and bottom navigation links. A text’s name can be adjusted at any time. See the following paragraphs in this section to learn more about that process.

Once a name has been entered for a the section, you can select on of the three remaining options: Save and Open in Editor, Save, or Cancel.

If Save and Open in Editor is selected, the view will transform into Manifold’s editor where the section can be authored using the WYSIWYG or code editor. See the Manifold Editor section for more on authoring content directly in Manifold.

Alternatively, when Save is selected the drawer will close and return you to Sections view with the name of the newly created section now appearing in the list.

Selecting Cancel will abort the creation of a new section and return focus to the main Sections view.

Adjusting Text Sections#

The list of of text sections in this view is one that is meant to be engaged with and where you can make adjustments that effect the text’s overall appearance in the reader. Each list entry shows the section’s name and also provides options to (1) make the section the point in the text the Manifold Reader will open to when the text is accessed from the frontend, (2) delete the text section, (3) edit the text of the section, (4) configure the section’s system properties, (5) reingest the section, or (6) reorder the section among other existing sections. We consider each option more fully now in turn:

The first option available in each section list entry is a button, denoted by a play-button icon, to make that particular section the place where the Manifold Reader will open to when the text is accessed. When selected, a badge labeled Start will appear in the listing.
Only one section can be serve as a text’s starting section. If no section is manually selected, Manifold will rely on the source file to determine which section the Reader should open to.
For EPUBs, that section is described in the toc.xhtml file in the landmark space beneath the Guide section. The entry with the epub:type="bodymatter" attribute will be the section the EPUB will want to open. Older EPUB2s will open to the section that has the type="text" attribute in the Guide section of the content.opf file. For Manifest Ingests, Manifold will default to the section that includes the start_section: true attribute. For other source files that were ingested, Manifold will rely on the order in which they appear here.
When no section is manually designated as the Start, the Manifold Reader will open to the first section in the list here in this view.
The delete button is a straight-forward option to delete that specific section from the text. If selected a confirmation prompt will appear to confirm the section should be deleted. Once done, the deleted section cannot be recovered.
Denoted by a pencil icon, the edit button opens the text in the Manifold Editor, where the section’s name and content can be edited directly in the system using Manifold’s built-in rich-text and code editor. For more on that functionality, see the Manifold Editor section of this documentation. It is important to note that changes to a section’s name here will adjust the section’s name throughout the Manifold backend. On the frontend, any changes to a sections’s name here will appear in the Reader’s title bar and in navigation links at the bottom of the Reader. However, changing a section name from this space will not automatically adjust how the name appears in the Contents dropdown or in a Table of Contents content block on a project’s landing page. See the following section about the Table of Contents sidebar for more on that.
Pictured as an analog control panel equalizer, the Settings button opens a drawer from the right with two options, one to configure the section’s slug for sharing and the other to hide the section from navigation.
The Slug field is meant to be used to create a shareable URL for a text section. The value entered in this field will not appear in the browser’s URL bar. By default, text sections in Manifold are assigned unique identifiers (UUIDs) when they are created. That UUID is what the system will display in the URL bar by default. But Manifold can also locate a text section by the slug entered here. Text section paths follow this pattern:
{instance-domain}/read/{project-slug}/{section-slug}
As a more concrete example, suppose you are working on our Edge instance of Manifold (edge.manifoldapp.org) in a project whose slug is running-advice. And for a text section you give it a slug value here of run-faster. The path to that text section that you could share would then be
edge.manifoldapp.org/read/running-advice/run-faster
However, that path that resolves in the browser would appear more like this:
edge.manifoldapp.org/read/running-advice/section/{UUID}
When creating slugs, it is best to avoid spaces and special characters to ensure they resolve properly.
The second option in this drawer a toggle labeled Hide in reader navigation? This option is for those text sections that are not yet ready to be displayed as part of the text—a section that is being authored or still in progress, for instance. When enabled, the navigation at the bottom of the Manifold Reader will not display links to this section. Listings of text sections in the Manifold Reader’s Contents dropdown functional independently of this toggle, and thus this toggle has no control over that particular space. To ensure your section is hidden from that Contents dropdown, see the following section about the Table of Contents sidebar.
The fifth option in a text section’s listing, described visually with a button of an upload icon, opens a drawer from the right where the section can be reingested from its source file. This replicates the behavior described above when using the Ingest New Section button. However, the idea here is to update a section that was originally ingested from an HTML, Markdown, Word file, or Google Document with any changes that were made to the source file. While it is possible to make those adjustments now directly in Manifold using the Manifold Editor, this option may better meet the needs of certain workflows. As with the earlier Ingest view, this drawer has an input box where a local file can be drag and dropped or selected using the operating system’s file system. Or, following that space there is a field labeled URL where the direct path of a remotely hosted file can be sourced to replace the current section in the system. Best practice is to only reingest a text section using the same kind of file that was used during the original ingest process. For example, if a Word document was used as the source of the original ingestion, it is better to use a modified version of that Word file than, say, a Google Document copy of that file.
The last option in a text section list entry is one to reorder it among the list of other text sections, using the button displaying two parallel grab bars. Those grab bars can be manipulated with a mouse by selecting them and then moving the entry up or down through the list. Alteratively entries can be reordered by tabbing to the option with the tab key, selecting it with the space bar, and then using the up or down arrows to adjust where the text section appears in the list. The order of the sections as they appear here will be the order for how the sections appear in the Manifold Reader and how the Reader announces the next and previous sections in the navigation space at the end of each section. This functionality mirrors how the order of text sections is defined in the spine section of the content.opf file in an EPUB file. Or, for a Manifest Ingest, how text sections are ordered according to how they appear beneath the toc list element.

Important Takeaways for the Sections Sidebar

Changing the name of a text section in this view adjusts its name in the Reader’s title bar and in navigation links at the bottom of the Reader but not in the Reader’s Contents dropdown or in a Table of Contents content block.
The order of the text section entries in the Sections sidebar is the order in which those sections will be announced by the navigation links at the bottom of the Manifold Reader.
Everything having to do with the order and name of text sections in the Contents dropdown that appears in the menu bar of the Manifold Reader is controlled independently by settings found in a text’s Table of Contents sidebar view, discussed in the following section.

Table of Contents#

The Table of Contents sidebar is concerned with only one thing: how and in what order the sections of a text display in the Manifold Reader’s Contents dropdown and in a Table of Contents content block that references the text on the project’s landing page.

While the Sections sidebar lists all the sections of a text, this view allows you to add nuance, nesting those text sections or adding sub-entries that point to content within an existing text section that warrant special attention.

Changes made in this view will not affect the order in which the sections appear in the Manifold Reader, and removing sections from this view will not delete them from the system. This paradigm mirrors that found in EPUBs, where the order and content of a section is not directly coupled with its table of contents. If the order of sections in the Sections sidebar is akin to the spine section of an EPUB’s content.opf file, the options in this view are akin to an EPUB’s toc.xhtml or toc.ncx file, which defines how the sections appear in an EPUB reader’s navigational views.

This view includes two buttons and a list of a text’s constituent sections. The system doesn’t automatically generate a Table of Contents list for texts originally created in Manifold. For texts created originally in Manifold, the list in this view will be empty initially.

Alternatively, for texts that are ingested from a source file, the system will display here a list of text sections in the order they appear in the spine section of the source’s contents file. For EPUBs, that will come from the toc.xhtml or toc.ncx file. For Manifest Ingests, the toc section of the YAML file describes the sections and their order within the text.

While EPUBs and Manifest already have their own internal contents lists, this space will make it easier to refine how the structure of those documents renders in the Contents dropdown or Table of Contents content block.

For single-file ingests, like a Word or Google document, those texts only comprise one text section, and that one section will automatically be listed in this view.

Add TOC Entry#

The first option available in this view is a button titled Add TOC Entry. Its purpose is to add a list entry for an existing text section or an entry that will point to a specific point within an existing text section—a heading or a image, for example. When selected a drawer opens from the right with three fields. The first, TOC Entry Name, is the name this section will appear as here in this backend view, in the Reader’s Contents dropdown, and in a Table of Contents content block on the project landing page.

Next, under the Section Link heading, there is a dropdown menu labeled Select a Text Section. This dropdown tells Manifold where the new contents list entry that is being created should point. This table of contents is a strictly functional one, meaning every table of contents listing must to point to a text section or an element within a text section. This dropdown will provide a list of all existing sections for this text to choose from.

The last field in this view, labeled Anchor Link is an optional text field that accepts an id value. IDs are HTML global attributes that are used to identify a specific element within a document. To learn more, see the Mozilla Web Documentation for HTML id elements. Here in this view, an id is the means by which a Table of Contents list entry can point to a specific location within a text section instead of the very beginning of the section. That location (or “anchor”) might be a heading, an image, an extract, etc.

If you are unsure of the anchor id you want to reference or if you need to add one, navigate to the corresponding text section using the Sections sidebar and open the Manifold Editor. Using Manifold’s code editing view, you can discover any existing ids or add news ones as needed, which can then be referenced here as anchors in this Table of Contents sidebar view. The Anchor Link field expects only an id value; that value should not be prefaced with a hash tag (#).

Auto Generate TOC#

The second option available in this view is a button labeled Auto Generate TOC. Because the table of contents list in this view will automatically be populated by the spine section of an EPUB or Manifest Ingest, this option is primarily aimed at uses cases where a text is being created within Manifold. In such instances, the system leaves this Table of Contents list view empty by default. Selecting this button will build a list of text sections according to the content and order or text sections as they currently appear in the Sections sidebar. Once the table of contents is built here, it can be modified to better portray the organizational hierarchy of the text.

While selecting this option refers back to the list of text sections in the Sections view, the connection between these two spaces is not live: additions or reordering of text sections in the Sections sidebar do not automatically update the Table of Contents list in this view. The only direct connection between the two views is when a text section is deleted from the Sections sidebar—when that happens any corresponding list items associated with that deleted section will disappear from this view as well. The reverse is not true: if a listing is deleted from this Table of Contents list, it will still remain in the system and continue show in the Sections sidebar.

When Auto Generate TOC is selected, the user will first be prompted to confirm their decision to have the system auto-populate this Table of Contents list. In situations where there is already a list of sections displaying in this view, having the system Auto Generate a TOC will overwrite the existing list in favor of the newly generated one.

Table of Contents List#

This list of text sections in this view represents how the text sections will be named and ordered in the text’s navigational table of contents that renders in the Contents dropdown in the Manifold Reader and in any associated Table of Contents content blocks that are set to appear on the project’s landing page. Each list item here has three available options, each following one another after the name of the list item: (1) delete the entry, (2) edit the entry, and (3) reorder the entry within the list.

Immediately following the name of the text section in the list item there is a trashcan button that will delete that section from appearing in the table of contents. Deleting an entry here does not delete the corresponding section from the text; it simple removes a listing for it in the Contents dropdown and in a Table of Contents content block. Within the Manifold Reader, a section deleted from this view will still appear according to where it is ordered in the list of text sections in the Sections sidebar. Likewise, the navigational links for next and previous sections that appear at the bottom of the Manifold Reader will announce the section according to the name and order of the section as it appears in the Sections sidebar. Because this space does not actually remove actual content there is no warming prompt when the delete button is selected; the section is simply removed. However, it can easily be added back in using the Add TOC Entry option described earlier in this section.
Described visually with a pencil button, the edit option for Table of Contents entries opens the same drawer from the right as when the Add TOC Entry button is selected. The only difference is that now all the applicable fields are filled in. When this option is selected, the entries name, association with a corresponding text section, and anchor link can be adjusted. As a quick reminder, changing the name of the TOC entry here only adjusts the name of the entry in the Contents dropdown and in Table of Contents content blocks. To change the name of the section as it appears in the Manifold analytics views in the backend, in the Reader’s title bar, and in the Reader’s bottom navigational links, use the Edit option for the text section in the Sections sidebar.
The last option, available by selecting the button showing two parallel lines representing grab bars, makes it possible to reorder the section with in the list. Items can be moved before or after other entries as well as nested under entries to indicate a hierarchy.
Using the mouse, select the grab bars and then move the entry up or down in the list to the desired location. To nest an entry, while you have the text section you want to move selected, hover over the entry it should be nested under. The parent element will show with a green outline. When you release your selection, the entry you positioned will now appear indented in the list beneath the parent entry. Entries can be nested up to ten levels. To reorder entries using a keyboard, tab to the grab bars and then select the entry with the space bar. Using the up and down arrows you can move the entry above or below other entries or, to nest the entry, you can move it directly onto another entry. When you release your selection, it will now appear indented beneath the parent section you dropped it onto.

Important Takeaways for the Table of Contents Sidebar

It is not possible to add descriptive or contextual elements (like bylines) to a Table of Contents that don’t direct a reader to a specific portion of the text. In other words, every Table of Contents list item must point at a specific text section or an anchor within a text section.
The order of entries here in the Table of Contents sidebar is how the entries will display in the Contents dropdown. It does not affect how the entries are announced in the navigational links at the bottom of the Manifold Reader. Thus it is possible to create a confusing experience for readers if the order of entries in the Sections sidebar differs from the order of entries here.
If you delete an entry from this Table of Contents list, it still appears in the navigational links at the bottom of the Manifold Reader. Deleting an entry here only removes it from the Reader’s Contents dropdown and from any Table of Contents content blocks that reference the text.
However, deleting a section from the Sections sidebar automatically removes it from the list displayed here in the Table of Contents sidebar.
This Table of Contents view only controls what appears in the Contents dropdown in the reader and the order in which they appear.

Assets#

In order for Manifold to be able to ingest EPUBs, HTML, Markdown, Word, and Google Documents into its Reader, the system needs to be able to accept a wide array of assets that go into the construction of those files. These assets are the files that make up a Manifold text—an EPUB, HTML file, or Word document, an image, audio, or video file that appear inline with the body content—or files that provide instruction or contribute to the logic or rendering of a text, like a YAML or CSS file.

Beginning with version 8, Manifold allows you to see a manifest of all those constituent assets that were ingested with a text by way of this Assets sidebar. Here you can also manually add new assets into the system and access their paths so they can be easily referenced throughout the instance. This functionality is intended to help users load and easily source the content needed to create and edit texts in Manifold.

Pertinent information about each of the asset types is provided at the end of this section in a tabbed list. For specific examples of how to embed an asset in a text or make it available elsewhere in the system, see the Edit Text Sections page.

This view is made up of a search bar, a button to create new assets, and a paginated list displaying those assets that were ingested with the text or have been manually added to it.

Searching Assets#

Situated below the header, the search bar allows you to search for assets associated with this specific text. The system will not return results for assets that were loaded to other texts, even if those texts are part of the same Manifold project.

When a search yields results, those results will appear below the search bar in the main body of this view, displacing the full list of the text’s assets.

The search bar includes two buttons: one to Reset the search bar and results and the other, labeled Options, exposes a dropdown so users can sort through the list of results by name or according to the date and time they were added to the system.

Adding and Editing Assets#

Below the search bar there is one button titled Add New Asset. When that button is selected, a drawer will slide open from the right with a field to provide a name to the asset and a box into which you can either drop the asset file that you want to upload, or from which you can use the Upload A File link to select the file you want to upload using your operating system’s file menu. Both of these fields are required in order to successfully create the new asset. See the tabbed list below for a list of all the acceptable file types the system will accept in this space.

Once an asset is saved to the system it will appear in the main body of this view, listed among any other existing assets. Each listing includes the name and path of the asset, a button to copy the asset’s URL (or “path”) to your system’s clipboard, and buttons to delete and edit the asset.

If an asset it deleted it will be entirely removed from the system and will no longer be able to be displayed in spaces in the text or instance where it is referenced.

Selecting the pencil icon to edit an asset will open a drawer from the right and present basic information about the asset. The drawer includes four fields: Asset Name, Asset ID, Asset URL, and a space to replace the existing asset file with a new one under the heading Upload Asset File. Of these only Asset Name and the Upload Asset File can be edited.

The Asset Name value is how the asset is labeled in list view. This field is required when creating a new asset. For assets that are added to the system when a text is ingested the system will automatically create a random UUID to stand in for the name. That name is not tied to the asset’s path, and thus it can be changed without concern for breaking established references to the asset.

The Asset ID, however, is tied to the path for the asset and thus cannot be edited. It displays here purely for reference purpose. Likewise, the Asset URL (or path) is another field that cannot be adjusted. However there is a button beside the URL value, labeled Copy URL, that will copy the asset’s path to the clipboard. This mirrors the functionality available from the list view, where the same button also appears.

Below the asset’s URL is a box where you can replace the existing asset file with a different one, either by dragging and dropping the file into the space or by selecting one through your file system.

For details on how to properly use the information presented in this view and reference an asset in a text or other component of the instance, see the Manifold Editor section section.

All of the image types accepted in the Asset field can be displayed in the browser in the body of a text:

.gif
.jpeg
.jpg
.png
.svg

Metadata#

This view groups into different categories the available metadata fields that describe a Manifold Text. Values displayed here appear in the Manifold Reader in the About this Text section, accessible from the Contents dropdown, and are also included in the BagIt archive when a Project is exported (see Exporting and Preserving).

Metadata can be entered here manually; however, when a Text is ingested, Manifold will search the source files for information it can use to populate the Rights and Language fields.

Rights and Language Source

Source	Location Notes
EPUB	In the `content.opf` file, Manifold will look for the `<dc:rights>Rights information</dc:rights>` and `<dc:language id="lang1">en</dc:language>` attributes.
HTML	For individual HTML Text ingests, the rights and language information appears between the `<head>` tags, formatted as `<meta name="dc.rights" content="Rights information">` and `<meta name="dc.language" content="en">`.
Markdown	When loading individual Markdown files, the rights and language data is defined as `rights: "Rights information"` and `language: "en-US"` in the document’s header.
MS Word (DOCX) and Google Docs	There is no current way to assign the Text's rights and language information in Google or Word documents.
Manifest Ingests	In the `meta` section of the YAML file, the rights and language attributes are formatted as `rights: "Rights information"` and `language: "en-US"`

The Unique Identifier is the only field Manifold will automatically populate with a UUID when a value is not provided in the source file. At present the only source file that can impart a Unique Identifier is an EPUB, where the content.opf file includes this attribute:

<dc:identifier id="pub-id">{string-value}</dc:identifier>

All of the fields on this page support Markdown formatting with the exception of DOI and Original Publication Date.

The Metadata section provides definitions for each metadata element shown in this view.

Styles#

The Styles pane lists, in the order they are applied from top to bottom, all the stylesheets (CSS) that govern the visual appearance of a Text in the Manifold Reader. Each listing begins with a thumbnail of a sheet of paper followed by the title of the stylesheet, the date it was added to the Text record, and then buttons to (1) delete, (2) edit, or (3) reorder the listings.

The title of each stylesheet is categorized by the system as “Ingested” or “User Created”. Ingested sheets are those that were part of the source file package and ingested with the Text. User Created sheets describe those that have been added after ingest through this view, using the + Add a New Stylesheet button that precedes the stylesheet list. The views for adding a new sheet are the same as for editing an existing one.

Shown as a trashcan icon, the Delete button removes an individual stylesheet from the Text record. Any style attributes included in the sheet will no longer be applied to the Text in the Manifold Reader.
The Edit button, depicted as a pencil icon, changes the view of the editing pane to a detail of the selected stylesheet, where the sheet can be renamed, its style attributes adjusted, and where you can dial in where the sheet’s rules are targeted:
The Name field is for backend users only; it is not revealed on the frontend.
Source Styles displays all the CSS attributes of the stylesheet in an editable text box. Syntax entered here should follow the CSS standard. The Validated Styles text box that follows below is not editable and reveals Manifold’s interpretation of the style attributes from Source Styles. Only styles that show up in this space will affect styling in the Reader. Manifold generally does not allow any attributes that hinder responsiveness or interfere with the Reader’s functionality.
The options in the Apply to These Text Sections space determine those Text sections to which the stylesheet will be applied. The dropdown lists all the sections of the Text. When a Text section is chosen, it is added to the entity list below the dropdown, indicating that the stylesheet’s rules will be applied to that section. Sections that do not appear in the entity list will not be affected by the stylesheet. The Add All and Remove All buttons below the dropdown add or remove all of the Text sections from the entity list in bulk. Each Text section in the entity list includes a × button that removes it from the list.
The horizontal drag bars beside the edit button can be used to adjust the Order the stylesheets are applied to the Text. The rules of the topmost sheet are applied first and then the one following after, and so on. Individual attributes in a first sheet can be overridden or adjusted by sheets that appear further down the list. The drag bars respond to clicking and dragging with your mouse or by pressing the space bar on your keyboard and then using the up or down arrow keys.

When a new Text is ingested, Manifold will create a stylesheet record here that includes most rendering instructions that were defined in the source file. In some cases, Manifold ignores certain selectors and attributes:

Manifold does not accept universal selectors, with the exception of the asterisk operator.
It is not currently possible to bake a new font into the system using an @font-face rule.
The system generally excludes these attributes: position, font-family, overflow, overflow-x, overflow-y, z-index, max-width, line-height, and letter-spacing.
Font sizes cannot be defined using point or pixel values.
Font weights cannot be set using numeric keyword values (e.g., font-weight: 400;)
When using a heading selector (e.g., h1, h2), Manifold does not allow a size, weight, line-height, margin, or padding to be set.
Paragraph blocks will not retain styles associated with font-weight, size, font-size, or line-height.
The system ignores width values associated with div elements.
Attributes that define the color or links is overwritten by the system’s theme settings.

Stylesheet Source

Source	Source Style Location
EPUB	CSS file in EPUB package
HTML, Markdown, Manifest	Inline style between `<style>` tags, CSS file in ZIP archive, or no supplied style.
MS Word (DOCX) and Google Docs	Each application exports its core paragraph and character styles that are captured here in two or more style records

If Manifold cannot find and source style information, it will create an empty stylesheet record listed in this view.

Stylesheet Permanence

Both Ingested and User Created sheets can be edited, but if a Text is Reingested, changes to the Ingested sheets will be overridden by the Reingest process by the contents of the Reingested source file. User Created sheets, however, will persist unaffected by the Reingest process.

Reingest#

The Reingest process is a means to update a Text with new additions or edits without losing any existing author engagements or Resource placements that are part of the Text currently in the system. However, this is not versioning control; when a Text is Reingested, the existing Text is supplanted by the new and is no longer available in the system.

Since there is no authoring component in the Manifold interface, edits to already ingested Texts need to be made to the source files that were originally ingested. The updated source files can then be loaded to the system from this view, which mimics the interface for adding a new Text (see Adding Texts).

When a Text is Reingested, all the annotations, highlights, and Resource placements that have been made will persist, unless such drastic changes were performed that the system can no longer identify their original anchors. In this unlikely case, annotations and highlights will be orphaned and no longer accessible. More likely, small edits will force the system to guess where annotations and Resources were originally placed with results not always being exact. The Reingest process is among the most technically complex in the system and is routinely tinkered with to better dial in the expected results.

Some Text-record fields are overridden by the Reingest process, with values from the newer source file overriding the existing values:

Text Record Fields Affected by Reingesting

Properties	Title, Subtitle, Publication Date, Description, Cover
People	Authors, Contributors
Metadata	Rights, Unique Identifier

location

What is a Text?#

Managing Project Texts#

Interface Overview#

Header#

Sidebar#

Editing Pane#

Ingesting New Texts#

How to Ingest a Text#

Creating New Texts#

Text Categories#

Editing a Text#

Analytics#

Setting a Date Range#

Reports#

Exporting Analytics

Properties#

Title#

Subtitle#

Publication Date#

Slug#

Description#

Cover#

Cover Image Alt Text#

Published?#

Section Label#

Ignore Access Restrictions?#

People#

Other Authorial Roles

Sections#

Adding Sections to the Text#

Adjusting Text Sections#

Important Takeaways for the Sections Sidebar

Table of Contents#

Add TOC Entry#

Auto Generate TOC#

Table of Contents List#

Important Takeaways for the Table of Contents Sidebar

Assets#

Searching Assets#

Adding and Editing Assets#

What about TEX and LATEX files?

Metadata#

Styles#

Stylesheet Permanence

Reingest#