12.3. Areas

The concept of an area is used to give semantics to flow objects. The result of formatting a flow object other than the root flow object is a sequence of areas. The nature of these areas is not fully specified by this International Standard. An area is a rectangular box with a fixed width and height. An area is also a specification of a set of marks that can be imaged on a presentation medium. An area may contain other areas. In particular, an area may contain a glyph. Information may be attached to areas depending on the flow object that produced the area and the context in which it is to be used. Areas are of two types: display areas and inline areas. Each type of area is placed in a different way. For an illustration of the concept of displayed and inlined areas, see Figure 4.

genarea

Figure 4: Displayed and Inlined Areas