In contrast to end user terminology, the notion of reflow is sometimes used to discuss
desktop publishing program features for
print publication
page layout such as automatically balancing the amount of text in a number of columns.[2]
Reflow is not limited to text; 21st century
scorewriters enable music notation to be reflowed between systems and pages in a similar way to how text reflows between lines and pages.
Examples
Besides HTML, commercially available systems include:
EPUB is a simple reflowable format that allows a single column with
inline images, in many ways similar to a stripped-down HTML.[3]
Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) introduced
XAML-based documents together with a viewer call "SinglePageViewer" that can reflow any WPF objects. However the
XPS document standard also introduced by Microsoft with WPF does not support reflow.[2]
Tagged
PDF documents can contain an additional data layer that (among other things) allows content to reflow within the boundaries of one original page.[4][5]
FictionBook is a free reflowable format by design. It does not specify the appearance of a document; instead, it describes its structure. For example, there are special tags for epigraphs, verses and quotations.