What's happening here to these crazy columns?

[jimlight]

I have this table sitting in a page with 3 columns on the page, and the table goes across all three rows,  But, the table does not line up at the top of all three columns.  I wonder what on earth I can do to make that level, as it looks like complete poo.

There's a text box above that area but not connected to the flow, I resized the column area and added a text box above, nothing fancy.

Trippy, no?

[Bob_Niland]

The usual hack is the that the line of anchoring text needs to have a negative Space Below (equal to the line spacing), and the table format needs to have a matching negative Space Above.

[jimlight]

Hmm.  I cannot get that to work!

The text frames are connected, I just assured that.

I don't think there is another program in my entire arsenal that gives me as much trouble as FrameMaker!

[jimlight]

Here's what the settings are for each:

[Bob_Niland · Accepted solution]

Paragraph needs neg space Below Para, not Above Para as you show it.

Table format needs neg Space: Above:

[jimlight]

BOB!  It WORKED! 

You rock.

[Bob_Niland]

Glad to hear it worked. Some additional muttering...

It usually doesn't occur to people to try this, because they don't expect negative sizes in FM dialogs to even be accepted, much less work. And indeed, in most case they don't work. Even in this case, two separate objects have to have the same bookend negspace, or it doesn't work. Way far from intuitive.

The table start is now going to be sitting on top of the text line containing the anchor. This is a stewardship hassle. I use a specific para tag for this, e.g. TableAnchor.Hidden. Typically, its font would have a named color, say, "Metadata", so that it's easy to see during edit, but Color Views can make it invisible in publication view modes. It would also have an autonumber that was just text (e.g. "TableAnchor.Hidden:\ "), so that it would be easier to see and select if needed.