The structure of a printout (worksheet or handouts)

[Oscar Levin]

TL;DR: Should #worksheet and #handout allow #introduction/#conclusion?

Over the last year, we have added a new "printout" division: #handout has joined #worksheet.  That was largely motivated by wanting to support scaffolded notes, but there are lots of other things that an instructor writing pretext might want to create.  I wrote my quizzes and exams using #worksheet this semester which mostly worked great.

While #worksheet was originally intended to be a collection of exercises, it can also have other content mixed in.  Of course this is definitely expected in #handout.  

The schema says that a #worksheet starts with an optional #objectives and #introduction and ends with an optional #outcomes and #conclusion.  The tricky bit comes when trying to control page breaks with these present.  When I wrote my final exam, I wanted a cover page.  I thought it was natural to wrap the content before the first exercise in its own #page.  That is not schema compliant, and resulted in less-than-ideal formatting.  If I didn't do so, then the introduction would get combined with the first page in the HTML print preview.  

Now that I'm writing this, I remember that last year we settled on an empty page element *after* the introduction to get the page break.  I think this would have worked, but it did not occur to me in the semester and I still don't think it is natural.  

Proposal: remove #introduction and #conclusion from printout divisions entirely.  You can't use #subsections (or any subdivisions other than #paragraphs) so what purpose does grouping an introduction have?  If you wan to divide the printout into pages, you can put these around all the content.

The only question would be what to do with #objectives and #outcomes.  They could go in a #firstpage and #lastpage (this would really only be in the schema to indicate that they should come first/last in the division).  Or who cares anyway?  Why not have objectives on each page??

[Rob Beezer]

Thanks, Oscar - much as I have been thinking as I worked through #2847.

A #worksheet was conceived as a (specialized) division where #exercise had some
greater freedom and slightly different behavior. Sequential numbering,
@workspace, can be laid-out via #sidebyside syntax, etc.

Crucially, as you note, there are no subdivisions - a specialized division is
terminal. An #exercises might benefit from an #introduction, before you launch
into the list of exclusively #exercise. But in #worksheet, you have the freedom
to start with pretty much whatever typical content you like. Numbering is hard
in a usual division-introduction, not so in a #worksheet. So it feels like an
#introduction does not buy us much. (Ditto #conclusion.) I have no real
experience with #handout, but it feels similar.

An #objectives and #outcomes are great additions to a #worksheet. The
assumption now is one-per-division, as their number is inherited from their
parent division. Where to put an #objectives? I'd say inside the first #page,
or first in a #page-less #worksheet. Yes, that complicates the schema, but that
is our problem - authors should be free to do what is natural.

Do we need a #coverpage? Not sure I understand the problem here.

> I thought it was natural to wrap the content before the first exercise in its
own #page.

I think that should be OK - does the schema want at least one #exercise?

Allowing some sort of cover page would be a good first step to letting
#worksheet do double-duty as a rough approximation of an #examination.

Rob

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[David Austin]

When writing a #worksheet, I often include some pieces that feel like an #introduction and a #conclusion.  After #objectives, I might say, "in our last class, we ..." and maybe include a statement of a theorem we proved as a reminder before saying "Today we will make use of this to ...".  Then there will be a series of exercises.  The end may have some summarizing comments in a #conclusion.  So #introduction and #conclusion are siblings of #exercise, which doesn't feel right, but I hope we can preserve this capability in some form if we're getting rid of #introduction and #conclusion.

David

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[David Austin]

I notice that Active Calculus wraps each #activity and #exploration inside a #worksheet.  I'm not necessarily arguing for this but just giving a sense of how #worksheets are currently being used.

[Mitch Keller]

I think as long as one could put a #p in a #worksheet without it being inside an #exercise or PROJECT-LIKE, this use case is covered.

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-- 
Mitch Keller
mi...@rellek.net

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[Rob Beezer]

That's no real problem, so long as the division they live in is properly
structured with respect to the presence of subdivisions.

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[Rob Beezer]

You have always been able to mix in "narrative" content, before, between, and
after #exercise in a #worksheet. So nothing to preserve, its been there from
the start.

The point of this discussion is that #introduction does not seem to buy you (or
the code) any real advantage. In fact, it is trouble for the code.

So if you say

<p>Today we will make use of this to ...</p>

at the top of your #worksheet before the first #exercise, is it any better if
you wrap it in an #introduction?

If it helps, as part of a deprecation, I'd think the "repair" pass of the
assembly stylesheet would simply unwrap #introduction, replacing it by its contents.

(Ditto for #conclusion.)

Rob

On 5/14/26 02:57, David Austin wrote:
> When writing a #worksheet, I often include some pieces that feel like an
> #introduction and a #conclusion.  After #objectives, I might say, "in our last
> class, we ..." and maybe include a statement of a theorem we proved as a
> reminder before saying "Today we will make use of this to ...".  Then there will
> be a series of exercises.  The end may have some summarizing comments in a
> #conclusion.  So #introduction and #conclusion are siblings of #exercise, which
> doesn't feel right, but I hope we can preserve this capability in some form if
> we're getting rid of #introduction and #conclusion.
>
> David
>

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[Oscar Levin]

I agree with everything said by Rob here, but thought I would highlight something that David's comments brought to mind: semantically, the content at the beginning and end are really part of an introduction and conclusion.  I don't have a strong opinion either way, but with an eye to future hypothetical uses, maybe it does make sense to let authors mark that content up as such.

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[Rob Beezer]

And I agree with everything Oscar has said.

> but with an eye to future hypothetical uses

And I can't think of just what that would look like at all. I do want to
capture author's intent, but only if we think that intent is going to be
expressed some way in our conversions.

Rob

On 5/14/26 10:29, Oscar Levin wrote:
> I agree with everything said by Rob here, but thought I would highlight
> something that David's comments brought to mind: semantically, the content at
> the beginning and end are really part of an introduction and conclusion.  I
> don't have a strong opinion either way, but with an eye to future hypothetical
> uses, maybe it does make sense to let authors mark that content up as such.
>

> On Thu, May 14, 2026, 8:50 AM 'Rob Beezer' via PreTeXt development <pretext-

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[David Austin]

Just want to say that I agree with everyone!  I gave some examples that I feel deserve consideration, and, of course, the reason I love writing in PreTeXt is because it provides the means to express my intent.  But I think all of the suggestions floated here allow me to do that.

David

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[Oscar Levin]

Again, I am not all that worried about either direction, but for the sake of completeness...

What if we extract worksheets into online canvas quizzes (one day) or more generally SCORM assessments?  In this case, it might make sense to separate the introduction as a sort of, I don't know what to call it... introduction?  A page that includes instructions but no exercises.

Of course, a #page could be used for this, especially if we have a concept of #firstpage (even if we author that just like a #page, just before the other #page).