Center Text in Table Cell

[Engineering Ambrell]

Hi all,

I am using FrameMaker 10 and am new to it.

Figured out how to center text in a cell using the paragraph designer but it will not save.

This is an already existing table that someone else put together.

any help appreciated.

Thanks,

Myko

[Engineering Ambrell]

I think I may have found a way to do this by going into the "structured view" and editing each row entry "align" = center.

But maybe there is a proper way to do this?

[Lynne A. Price · Accepted solution]

Myko,

1. You do not have to use the Structure View to edit attributes in FrameMaker. The command Element > Edit Attributes brings up the Attributes pod, initialized to show attributes of the current element.
2. You can set the attributes for multiple elements with one command. If you select multiple elements, the Attributes pod shows attributes common to all of them. For example, if you select adjacent cells, you can set all their align attributes at once. Be aware, though, that if you select all the cells in a row, FrameMaker "heats" the selection up to the row element instead of the individual cells. Therefore, if you want to set an attribute on all cells in the row, you'll need to do It in two parts.
3. You can copy and paste attribute values. For example, you can:
   1. Set the align attribute on one cell.
   2. Make sure no other attributes are set on that cell.
   3. Use Edit > Copy Special > Attribute Values to copy that one attribute to the clipboard.
   4. Select other cells (but not entire rows) and paste.
4. You can use Find/Change to paste attribute values. For example, once you have the desired value of the align attribute on the clipboard, in the Find/Change pod, you can:
   1. Select Element from the Find pop-up menu at the top and specify the name of the attribute you want to change.
   2. Click Find to find the next occurrence of that attribute.
   3. From the Change pop-up menu, select By Pasting.
   4. Click Change or Change & Find.
   You can also use Change All to change all attributes of the specified type in a Book, Document, or Selection.
5. If there is an align attribute in FrameMaker, most likely there is an align attribute in XML. If you are the person who maintains the XML document, you could set the attribute in XML instead of in FrameMaker. If you set the attributes in FrameMaker and save the document as XML, depending on how FrameMaker has been configured for your environment, it is likely that the attribute values will be saved ub XML.
6. If the align attribute is optional, there may be a default value (if so, when no explicit value is set, the Structure View will show the default value in italics) and the bottom of the Attributes pod will show the default value.
7. Some structured environments are set up so that attributes such as align can be set for the entire table, the table part (header, body, footer), the row, or the cell. The value for one of these elements in effect becomes the default for its descendants.
8. If the attribute has no default value, the FrameMaker table format determines the paragraph format to use and the alignment set in the paragraph format is used. If you are the person in your organization who maintains the template, you can define the table format to make the default the most likely choice for your particular documents.

            --Lynne