Documentarea

Documentarea is a term used in user interface design and document-centric software to designate the central region of a workspace where the document content is displayed and edited. It contrasts with peripheral UI elements such as toolbars, side panels, headers, footers, and status bars. In many applications the document area is also known as the editing surface, content pane, or canvas.

In word processors and page-layout programs, the document area is the continuously scrollable region where text, images, tables, and other elements appear. It is bounded by margins and page boundaries and responds to features such as text wrapping, pagination, spell checking, and formatting. The document area may support multiple pages or a continuous scrolling mode.

In code editors and rich-text editors, the document area provides the editable surface for the document's content. It commonly supports selection, caret positioning, formatting commands, insertions, and live rendering of styles. In web-based editors the document area often supports responsive resizing and keyboard navigation.

Layout considerations include margins, gutters, rulers, guides, and grid overlays that help align content. The document area may be zoomable and pannable to accommodate different screen sizes and printing needs.

From an accessibility perspective, the document area should be operable by keyboard, properly labeled for screen readers, and able to maintain focus, while performance techniques such as virtualization and lazy rendering may be employed for large documents.