15.5.13 Specifying DITA element levels
To specify the level at which a block element should appear in DITA output, you can assign a level number to any FrameMaker paragraph formats that are mapped to the element (see §15.4.3 Mapping paragraph formats to DITA block elements). However, for most nesting issues, you should use settings that specify ancestry rather than level; see §15.5.2 Designating DITA ancestor elements.
Assign levels only for the following purposes:
• to identify paragraph formats mapped to <title> that should start new topics; assign level 1 to each such format
• to handle unusual situations that cannot be addressed any other way.
To specify the level of a DITA block element:
; Frame para format (wildcards OK) = level in DITA (not Frame) file
; required for the DITAParaTag specified for this element.
The lower the level number, the higher the level; <topic> is level 0, the root. You cannot put anything else at level 0. The topic title is at level 1. The first heading in the topic body is at level 3 (a title below <topic>, <body>, and <section>).
Specify level 1 for each paragraph format that starts a topic. For example:
Assign level 1 only to topic-title formats. If you assign level 1 to a paragraph format that does not start a topic, each topic in which such a paragraph occurs will end prematurely, and a new topic will start at the level-1 paragraph. Probably not what you want.
Do not try to use DITA levels to achieve nested lists; instead see §15.5.8 Configuring nested lists.
To override the assigned level of a particular paragraph, place a DITALevel marker in the paragraph. A DITALevel marker specifies the level at which the current block element should appear in the DITA file, overriding whatever is specified for the format in [DITALevels]. The content of a DITALevel marker is a single integer.
§16.2.2 Specifying topic levels in ditamaps
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