How can I save widths of columns in a table in XML documents?

[oksanag21296527]

Hello everyone!

Please help me understand what I need to do if I want ... tables of the same type in my XML document keep different column widths.

1) I use FM 2017 and have a book with XML files, so I use a DTD and EDD files to design my document.

2) I added to  EDD a new type of table and updated DTD.

3) As a result, I can add this new table in a document, but I cannot save widths of columns. If I close the document and reopen it, the widths of columns have default settings which I set in structure template for Table format. I cannot predict what column widths I will need for future tables, so I would like to be able to adjust the width of the columns for each individual table and save these settings after closing the document. How can I do it? Is it possible?

[Russ Ward]

Hi oksanag21296527,

It is definitely possible, as this is a basic artifact of formatting. Without it, XML import/export would be hardly useful, at least within an application focused on WYSIWYG layout.

Having said that, it has been a long time since I set up a structured app to do this, so I don't remember all the details. My best advice is to study the Structure Developers Guide, because I know the information is in there. It's how I figured it out originally.

I can share some things, maybe these will help a little bit. Here are the read/write rules I use that are related to table elements:

element "tgroup"
{
  is fm table element;
  attribute "cols" is fm property columns;
  attribute "outputclass" is fm property table format;
  attribute "colsep" is fm property column ruling;
  attribute "rowsep" is fm property row ruling;
}
element "colspec"
{
  is fm colspec;
  attribute "colnum" is fm property column number;
  attribute "colname" is fm property column name;
  attribute "align" is fm property cell alignment type;
  attribute "charoff" is fm property cell alignment offset;
  attribute "char" is fm property cell alignment character;
  attribute "colwidth" is fm property column width; 
  attribute "colsep" is fm property column ruling;
  attribute "rowsep" is fm property row ruling;
}
element "spanspec"
{
  is fm spanspec;
  attribute "spanname" is fm property span name;
  attribute "namest" is fm property start column name;
  attribute "nameend" is fm property end column name;
  attribute "align" is fm property cell alignment type;
  attribute "charoff" is fm property cell alignment offset;
  attribute "char" is fm property cell alignment character;
  attribute "colsep" is fm property column ruling;
  attribute "rowsep" is fm property row ruling;
}

Note that I generally follow the CALS model. More specifically, my schema is valid against the DITA <topic> DTD, although I'm not using DITA. Looking at these rules, it seems I have lots of stuff in there that is not used. But for sure, the column widths get saved. It looks like this in the XML:

<tgroup outputclass="Normal_Title" id="QPXDYXEQ" cols="4" colsep="0" rowsep="1">
<colspec colname="1" colnum="1" colsep="0" colwidth="0.505in"/>
<colspec colname="2" colnum="2" colsep="0" colwidth="1.074in"/>
<colspec colname="3" colnum="3" colsep="0" colwidth="1.563in"/>
<colspec colname="4" colnum="4" colsep="0" colwidth="2.727in"/>
<thead>
...

I hope this helps some. Somebody who does this on a regular basis could provide more expertise. For example, it may be possible without the extra <colspec> elements. I don't have time to research it all again myself.

Russ

[Matt S - Tech Comm Tools]

Hi Oksana,

Basically, as Russ showed, you need to provide a read/write rule to convert your column width to an attribute value.

Russ brings up a great point about your content model...can you tell us what that model is? DITA, iSpec, mil-std?

The specifics of how you manage it are dependent on that content model.

-Matt

[Trevor-Nicholls]

Hi

We have a kind of roll-your-own table definition. A really simple table could look like this:

<table cols="n" colwidths="x,y">

<tt>Table title</tt>

<th><tr><td>head 1</td><td>head 2</td></tr></th>

<tb><tr><td>cell 1</td><td>cell 2</td></tr></tb>

<tf><tr><td>footer 1</td><td>footer 2</td></tr></tf>

</table>

Any of the td elements can have a colspan and/or rowspan attribute for cells which stretch across multiple columns or down multiple rows.

Our rules are these:

element "table" {

  is fm table element;

  attribute "cols" is fm property columns;

  attribute "colwidths" is fm property column widths;

}

element "tt" {

   is fm table title element;

}

element "th" {

   is fm table heading element;

}

element "tb" {

   is fm table body element;

}

element "tf" {

   is fm table footer element;

}

element "tr" {

   is fm table row element;

}

element "td" {

   is fm table cell element;

   attribute "colspan" is fm property horizontal straddle;

   attribute "rowspan" is fm property vertical straddle;

}

Perhaps this helps?

Cheers

T