Where is the table width stored?

[Rsfl]

I am stranded, can you give me a short hint?

The DITA 1.1 code of a table that contains a note looks like this:

<table frame = "none" colsep = "0" rowsep = "0">

<tgroup cols = "2" colsep = "0" rowsep = "0" outputclass = "my_table_style">

<colspec colnum = "1" colname = "1" colwidth = "0.630in" colsep = "0"/>

<colspec colnum = "2" colname = "2" colwidth = "4.990in" colsep = "0"/>

<tbody>

<row rowsep = "0">

<entry colname = "1">...

However when I change the second colwidth to make the table width shorter, then when I open the topic the next time FM increases the width of the first column correspondingly. The overall width of the table thus always stays the same.

It seems I must correct the overall width of the table to match my page layout, where can I find this? It's not in the EDD and not in the table style of the template (or is it?).

Robert

[MarttiP]

Hi Robert,

Are you using FM 11 with DITA 1.2 app?. If I remember right (we are using our own dita app in fm..), the AdjustTableWidth.xsl script checks if the table is less than 7 inches wide (and has more than one column), it recalculates the colwidths evenly to prescribed total width.

BR, Martti

[ScottPrentice]

Hi Robert...

If your r/w rules file contains this rule ..

     writer use proportional widths;

.. the colspec values will be interpreted proportionally and the table will be adjusted to fill the available text column width. Comment this rule out and you *might* get tables that remain sized as you define them. I say "might", because depending on the FM version you're using, the core plugin may override this and do something else.

DITA-FMx does this "correctly" (honors the r/w rule), but I'm not sure about the default DITA-FM plugin.

Cheers,

...scott

[Rsfl]

Hi Scott, actually I am using FMx 1.1 and FM11. I deleted that line completely in the topic_1.1.rules.txt  file but the problem remains. My main issue are indented tables (they stick out into the margin on the right page side).

You mention the core plugin, is this anything that can be modified? I have trouble imagining FM11 does not support flexible table formatting, it was no problem with FM7.2.

Robert

[Gorly]

Hi Robert,

this issue occured to us too.

If a table spans over the margin, FM11 and it's dita_app.dll override anything and place it proportional into the main text flow - no matter what you do. That override is hardcoded and pretty anoying.

As soon as you move out of the DITA sphere, FM11 behaves in the point as expected (ie. using the default XML API) and the tables are where they belong to.

This issue caused me some mayor headakes too, but it's been confirmed by Adobe support, that this is a known issue (but it seems to be minor for them, as I never got any update on my bug report).

Cheers Alex

[ScottPrentice]

Hi Robert...

If you're using FMx, you might check out the following help topic on Indented Images ..

     http://docs.leximation.com/dita-fmx/1.1/?ditafmx_indentedimages.html

Disabling the r/w rule won't change left-justified tables from being flush with the left side of the text column, but shouljd allow you to create tables of varying widths.

Cheers,

...scott

[Rsfl]

I found the solution now. In the ditafmx.ini file which is located in the user data I changed the setting ForceTablesWide from 1 to 0.

So this appears to be a bug of FMx, not of Framemaker. While forcing a table width flush with the text column is probably desirable, this setting pushes tables out into the margin if they are indented (e.g. in a list).

Problem solved!

[ScottPrentice]

Hi Robert...

I'm glad you found the solution!

Since there's a setting in FMx that allows you to enable/disable this functionality, that doesn't sound like a bug to me, it just defaults to the full width option.

All the best,

...scott