Formatting tables

[ptc-953343]

I've got two issues with tables regarding spacing.

1) I'm trying to get a standard space above and below the content of a
cell (really the whole row) in a CALS table. It seems like prespace works
just fine but any value I insert for postspace is ignored. I'm placing
this on the element contained in the cell. There is just the one element
in the table I'm trying to modify. The only thing that seems to work is to
use the newline touchup. At least I get space above and below, I haven't
tried controling the actual space beyond this as I didn't really like the
solution. I also tried the touchup pre/post space settings and it didn't
work any better than setting it on the element.

2) The space around the same table seems to be fixed. It appears to be
about .25in of space above and below my table. I can add space to this
with pre/post space, but when those are not set I have a standard .25in
area above and below. I've added and removed text on the page to see if it
wasnt' just this page's content. If I set my pre/post space to 0 on the
table, the prespace is collapsed but the post still looks like .25 in.
I've checked the settings on the element that follows this table and there
is no prespace value.

Any suggestions on what to try next?

..dan

[ebenton]

Have you tried creating a FOSI e-i-c for <entry> and setting the leading?

[ptc-953343]

> Have you tried creating a FOSI e-i-c for <entry> and setting the leading?
>
>

Just did, no effect. Doesn't leading just affect between lines of text
space anyway? Looks like it might not have any affect in this case. I
looked at an instance where the text in a cell wrapped and this didn't
affect the space there either.

Was worth the try.

..dan

[DavidS.Taylor]

Hi Dan,

Have you looked at the cell margins? It's also possible to set a "fixed" row height if necessary, although that's rarely needed.

With your cursor in the table, go to the Table/Table Properties... menu and see if one or more of the properties will do what you want. Some, like the cell margins, affect the whole table, others are specific to rows, columns or individual cells.

Putting pre/postspace on a single element in a table cell has never worked reliably in my experience, the cell properties built into Arbortext seem to override these categories. When you have multiple elements (i.e., a list) in a table cell, then the pre/postspace will work between those elements.

Cheers,

David

David S. Taylor

Project Manager, Structured Information
Institute for Research in Construction
National Research Council Canada
Bldg. M-23A, Room 239
1200 Montreal Road, Ottawa, ON K1A 0R6

[tbihlmeyer]

Have you tried setting the cell margins? Preferences allows you to adjust the
tablecellmargins. By default, I believe it's set to 5 pts.

[tbihlmeyer]

Sorry, It's not controlled in the preferences. It can be added to an
instance.acl file to have a global effect.

[ptc-953343]

I'm not seeing anything useful there. I'm using the CALS tables, what you
are talking about I'm used to seeing with HTML tables. Did I miss
something?

..dan

> Hi Dan,
>
> Have you looked at the cell margins? It's also possible to set a "fixed"
> row height if necessary, although that's rarely needed.
>
> With your cursor in the table, go to the Table/Table Properties... menu
> and see if one or more of the properties will do what you want. Some, like
> the cell margins, affect the whole table, others are specific to rows,
> columns or individual cells.
>
> Putting pre/postspace on a single element in a table cell has never worked
> reliably in my experience, the cell properties built into Arbortext seem
> to override these categories. When you have multiple elements (i.e., a
> list) in a table cell, then the pre/postspace will work between those
> elements.
>
> Cheers,
>
> David
>
> David S. Taylor
>
> Project Manager, Structured Information
> Institute for Research in Construction
> National Research Council Canada
> Bldg. M-23A, Room 239
> 1200 Montreal Road, Ottawa, ON K1A 0R6
>

[ptc-953343]

I was really looking for a non-Arbortext specific fix but this will get
the job done. I had been looking at the cell tab on Table Properties for
this and didn't see it on the table tab.

..dan