# Getting content assistance in structured text editors

To get help in adding markup to a file, you can use content assist in a structured text editor. Content assist helps you insert or finish a tag or function or finish a line of code in a structured text editor.

Content assist also enables you to select and insert templates in structured text editors. The placement of the cursor in the source file provides the context for the content assist to offer suggestions for completion.
You can request content assist in either of the following two ways:

- From the Edit menu, select Content Assist
- Press Ctrl+Space

In addition, you can set a preference that causes content assist to pop up automatically when certain characters are typed, such as `.` in the case of JavaScript™ or `<` in the case of HTML and XML. To set this preference, select Preferences from the Window menu, and then select Web and XML Files, followed by one of the following sequences:

- HTML Files > HTML Source
- JavaScript Files > JavaScript Source
- XML Files > XML Source

In the Content assist group box, select the Automatically make suggestions check box, and supply any additional characters that should trigger content assist.

If your cursor is in a position where content assist is available, a pop-up list of all available choices is displayed. For each of these choices, a brief description of the code is provided.

Related concepts
Content assist
Structured text editors for markup languages

Related tasks
Making content assist work for JSP files
Adding and removing markup language templates - overview
Editing text coded in markup languages - overview

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