Table width & alignment problem in Webhelp

[rnv]

Hi,

I have 2 questions:

1. How to specify the width of a column using Attribute Inspector?
    I can use Code view and update colwidth of the element colspec. But is it possible to do in TagsOn or Normal view using Attribute Inspector?

2. XMetal TagsOn and Normal view displays the table with proper alignment and column width (e.g. 100pt) but when I publish Webhelp (have not teste pdf yet) the alignment and column width are not correct. alignment is left and the column width depends on the length of the text in a cell. How to specify properly?

regards,
rnv

Reply

[kwag_myers]

1. In tags on view, click to the right of the Properties tag. In the Attribute Inspector, enter your widths in relcolwidth. I always use percentages, so the syntax I use is 20* 20* 60*. It seems to me there are other units, such as pixels, but I'm not familiar with the syntax.

2. If all your tables are the same you can set these values in the commonltr.css. I don't have any experience in using the Attribute Inspector to set these. Sorry.

Reply

[kwag_myers]

I just remembered something about columns in PDF. If you have a Reference topic with only two columns, you have to put in a zero colwidth attribute for the column you took out: 20* 0* 80*.

Also, if you want all your Reference topic tables to be the same you can tweek the Reference.xml template: C:Program FilesXMetaL 7.0AuthorTemplateDITA Topic (you'll have to change the security settings for this folder and give yourself write access).

I didn't test this, but I think you add your colwidth attributes to the tag:

[code]  
   relcolwidth=”20* 20* 60*”>
     [/code]

All your Reference topic tables will have the same colwidth attribute.

For your second question, I assumed you were talking about properties tables, i.e., Reference topics. When working with a regular table, I always have to go into the XML syntax and add the attributes there (by default, there is a colwidth=”*” attribute):

[code]   colwidth=”20*”/>   colnum=”3″ colname=”col3″ colwidth=”60*”/>

[/code]

Reply

[Author]

Posts