Can I force Straddle for table cells in the EDD ?

Hello Lynne,

I've been out of my office for a while, so that is why this reply is a little late.

Although this would indeed create a structure that is valid when the header row cells are straddled, it would not remove the need for manually applying the straddle option, which is not what I want. I did remove the line between the columns (it had no real use in the message panels anyway) and it left me with a very thin white line between the two header cells. Hardly visible, but zooming in on the PDF reveals them. Not perfect, but good enough for now.

As far as I can tell now, the only way to make the hazard statements look perfect (without the thin white line) and not involving manual labor is to write a little script that does this for all hazard statement headers in the book. But then this might cause unforeseen problems with transformations to other targets. So probably I won't bother at all.

Thanks for the suggestion, though.

Jang

Hello Peter,

I am sorry, but that is not compliant to ANSI Z535 and also it lacks the freedom to add specific icons to messagepanels that are grouped into the same hazard statement (with one heading that shows the hazard level). In ANSI Z535, there are 4 very clearly defined hazard categories, although there may be a lot of specific hazards that can be grouped into these levels. The heading is described in a lot of detail and not to be messed with.

In the meantime I have decided to drop the line between the rows and I will probably use a script to make the cells in the heading into one straddled cell, so it will look perfect. Thanks for the offer.

Jang

Hi Michael,

Oh, well. I had already figured out that this is not an option. I did remove the line between the rows, as it does not add any thing to the clarity of the message panels in my hazard statement table. But FM cannot handle two adjacent cells with graphic frames without adding a single hairline between them, even if I told the program that the border should be None. Something about the importance of frames for FM, I guess. I have only been able to remove the extra unwanted and uncalled-for hairline by straddling the cells (manually). Of course I will have to adapt the EDD to allow straddled cells in the header, but that is peanuts compared to the stuff I have been doing to make this design work in the first place.

As I will have to create a small script to perform a series of necessary steps before a book can be published, and my hazard statement tables all have the exact same small problem, I will probably include a script that goes through the whole book and applies a straddle to any cells in the heading row of any hazard table. Being a perfectionist, writing that script before handing my stuff over to my customer will make me happier than not doing it and saving some time by delivering a solution that does not make me perfectly happy.

When all the hard work for my current projects is done, I will try to publish an article on how to implement ANSI Z535 compliant hazard statements in structured FM documents. Might be useful for others, too. I will show you my solution at the tcworld fair, if you have some time for that.

Ciao

Jang