Thanks, Torsten. Very illuminating. The org-syntax.html says of blocks: #+BEGIN_NAME PARAMETERS CONTENTS #+END_NAME NAME can contain any non-whitespace character. PARAMETERS can contain any character other than new line, and can be omitted. If NAME is "CENTER", it will be a "center block". If it is "QUOTE", it will be a "quote block". If the block is neither a center block, a quote block or a block element, it will be a "special block". That does not seem to be quite true as lisp/org-element.el recognises the following blocks (perlregexp: /begin_(\w+)/i): - CENTER - COMMENT - EXAMPLE - QUOTE - SRC - VERSE ... in addition to any other valid block names. For these, the content is displayed as plain text after striping the BEGIN/END lines unless the exporter used has code for handling it differently. Note: org-syntax.html needs updating. So, to implement parameters for the EXAMPLE block, relevant code has to be added to the exporter. That's a nontrivial task to do consistently. Incidentally, the solution to my immediate problem is the COMMENT block. Its contents are completely ignored and not passed to exporters. If I find myself using that a lot, a macro or a a function to toggle between these two might come handy: #+BEGIN_COMMENT :type EXAMPLE text in a block #+END_COMMENT <> #+BEGIN_ EXAMPLE text in a block #+END_EXAMPLE Unless someone beats me to it, I'll write it one day. :) -Heikki Heikki Lehvaslaiho - skype:heikki_lehvaslaiho http://about.me/heikki cell: +966 545 595 849 office: +966 12 808 2429 Saudi Arabian weekend is now Friday and Saturday. KAUST Supercomputing Center, Building #1, Level 0, 0203-WS23 4700 King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) Thuwal 23955-6900, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia On 1 April 2014 13:10, Thorsten Jolitz wrote: > Heikki Lehvaslaiho writes: > > > I am using example blocks as inline notes where I paste snippets of > > (pre-formatted) text. I'd like to be able to control the exporting of > > those block individually (per document would also be useful). I do not > > seem to be able to find documentation about anything along those > > lines. > > > > Here is a mock-up: > > > > #+BEGIN_EXAMPLE :exports none > > private notes... > > #+END_EXAMPLE > > I don't think example blocks take arguments. You might try > > #+BEGIN_SRC org :exports none > private notes... > #+END_SRC > > or collect these example blocks in subtrees with export tags/properties. > > > A bigger question is that while code blocks are well defined and well > > documented, all other blocks are not. Is there somewhere a design > > document the would give a logic of having different blocks and how > > they are controlled? Maybe there is an other type of a block that does > > what I want? > > The inline documentation in ox*.el files is too low level to be > > helpful. > > AFAIK export of these block types is backend specific, e.g. ox-ascii.el > might treat example block different than ox-html.el, so thats where to > look. > > ,--------------------------- > | C-h v org-export-with- TAB > `--------------------------- > > gives some hints too. Using drawers instead of example blocks would > enable you to toggle export documentwise. > > I asked a similar 'bigger' question before, and remember that the answer > was more or less 'the block name says it all'. > > However, here is a (dense) description of the org syntax: > > ,-------------------------------------------- > | http://orgmode.org/worg/dev/org-syntax.html > `-------------------------------------------- > > -- > cheers, > Thorsten > > >