Element Text and Field Text

Element text is text that you can access in any file that uses the element. The text is also used for online help. For example, when you type text at the element level for Employee in one file, you can view the same text for the Employee element in all other files in the product line.

Field text is text that you can access only in the file where you typed the text. For example, if you type text at the field level for Employee in one file, you can view the text for the Employee field only in that same file.

The level you use to write help text for a field depends on where and how the field is used. It is important to understand the default order of help text levels. Form-level text overrides both field-level and element-level text. Field-level text overrides element-level text. In other words, when you are writing user text, if form-level text for a field exists along with text at other levels, the form-level text displays and prints. When you are writing data file or user text, if field-level text for a field exists along with element-level text, the field-level text displays and prints.

The printed documentation that is generated when you use the Print User Text utility (userdoc) or Print Data File Text utility (dbdoc).

For the procedure for defining element and field text, see Defining Element Text and Field Text.