Create formatters¶
A formatter describes the appearance of a document: its colour palette, its typography, its page layout, the style of its illustrations. It is a formatting instruction, written once and applied to a whole course, so every produced document looks alike.
An instruction, not an engine
The tool never builds a .docx itself: generation, driven by Claude, writes the document. A formatter is therefore not a layout program — it is a set of instructions that generation reads and follows. Exactly like a routine, but on the form side rather than the pedagogy side.
Three concrete formatters¶
| Formatter | What it fixes | Reach |
|---|---|---|
| House style (docx) | Palette, typography (e.g. Calibri, body 11–12 pt), page setup, image compression | Shared — any .docx |
| Art style (images) | The look of illustrations: flat 2-D vector, Senegalese textbook style, character consistency | Shared — illustrated subjects |
| Illustration layout — CI maths | Image formats, activity-panel layouts, answer-badge colours (A red / B blue / C green), display sizes | Workspace — subject-specific |
Formatters stack
A specific formatter (the maths illustration layout) sits on top of the shared ones (the house style, the art style). The general sets the common tone; the specific adds the rules proper to the subject.
The catalog: the same library as routines¶
Formatters and instructional routines share the same catalog and the same two shelves:
- Shared — common to all programmes, reserved for the super administrator;
- Workspace — specific to your programme, editable by its curators.
To browse and read the catalog:
"What's in the catalog?"
"Show me the detail of the 'House style' formatter."
Apply a formatter to a course¶
Unlike a routine (which applies to a lesson), a formatter applies to a course — the root of the document to produce:
"Apply the 'House style' formatter to this course."
Generation of that course will then follow the formatting instruction. As with a routine, applying it creates an independent copy attached to the course: a later edit to the catalog formatter does not flow back to courses already served.
Create or edit a formatter¶
Start from an existing one (the usual case)¶
Nobody writes a formatter from a blank page. Start from the one that is nearly right, duplicate it, and change what differs:
"Duplicate the 'House style' formatter as 'Revision-sheet style'."
"In my copy, set the body font to 12 pt."
The copy lands on your shelf (the workspace library), with its own rules. It is also the only way to adapt a shared formatter: you don't edit the version every programme uses — you take a copy of it.
Create one from scratch¶
When nothing fits, you write it by chatting, and everything goes into a draft:
"Create a formatter 'Poster style' in my workspace's library: …"
A formatter's content is instruction text: describe precisely what generation must respect (colours, fonts, sizes, margins, image style…). The clearer the instruction, the more consistent the result.
Write it straight into the library
Say "in the library" (or "in the catalog") from the start. Entries used to be built inside a subject and then copied across to the library: that detour is no longer needed, and it left a half-finished formatter sitting in the curriculum whenever a session stopped part-way.
Who can edit what
A formatter on the workspace shelf is edited by a curator of that workspace. A shared formatter is reserved for the super administrator, since it serves all programmes.
A useful detail if you inspect the graph
A routine and a formatter do not attach in the same place. A routine sits on a lesson (usesRoutine link); a formatter sits under the document itself, with its rules as parts (hasPart link). That is deliberate: formatting is a property of the produced document, not of the curriculum being taught. Evaluation rubrics attach exactly like formatters.