# Creating XHTML content with OpenOffice.org and Writer2xhtml

The default behavior of Writer2xhtml is to export content and formatting. Alternatively you can export content only; this can be controlled with a configuration file. The configuration file `cleanxhtml.xml` uses some built-in text- and paragraph styles in OpenOffice.org to create well-structured XHTML documents, using most of the semantic tags offered by XHTML.

## Paragraph styles

For your paragraphs, the style Text body is used for ordinary paragraphs: `<p>...</p>`.

> The style Quotations is used to produce blockquotes.

> Several paragraphs with this style are collected to a single blockquote: `<blockquote><p>...</p><p>...</p></blockquote>`.

    The style preformatted text is used to produce <pre>...</pre>.

The style Horizontal line is used to produce `<hr>`.

## Other paragraph styles

If you format paragraphs with other styles, they will be exported as ordinary paragraphs (`<p>`) with a class attribute. For example this paragraph has style My Own Style, which will be exported as `<p class=”MyOwnStyle”>...</p>`.

## Definition lists

OpenOffice.org does not support definition lists directly. Instead you can use two paragraph styles:

- The style List Heading is used to produce the definition term `<dt>...</dt>`.

- The style List Contents is used to produce the definition `<dd>...</dd>`.

Any sequence of these are wrapped in a single `<dl>...</dl>`, like this:

This is a term.
  This is the definition of the term.
This is another term.
  This is the definition of the other term.

## Text styles

A number of text styles maps to XHTML elements as well: Use the text styles Citation – Definition – Emphasis – `Example` – `Source Text` – Strong Emphasis – `Teletype` – User entry – Variable to produce `<cite>`, `<dfn>`, `<em>`, `<samp>`, `<code>`, `<strong>`, `<tt>`, `<kbd>`, `<var>`.

## Hard character formatting

If you export content only, hard character formatting is ignored in general. An exception to this rule is bold, italics, superscript, subscript and `fixed pitch fonts`, which are exported to `<b>`, `<i>`, `<sup>`, `<sub>` and `<tt>` respectively.