Not Considering

Workaround has been provided.

'Ghost' value to force widest-text column width in tables

There are occasions when it is required to maintain a particular column width across multiple columns within the same table or across multiple tables. This is normally achieved by using 'widest text'.

However, this only operates on the actual content within the columns. If that content does not match the widest text in other columns or tables it results in a narrower or wider column.

It would be very useful to have a template entry or a 'ghost' entry, so that the same width can be obtained regardless of the content.

i.e. several columns should have the same width based on a 'ghost' value of '$123,456,789'  but a column's content might range from '$1,234' to $12,345,678'. This column's content should behave (and compose) as though the larger, wider 'ghost' value were present.

Any solution should NOT require a dummy row as this would disturb alternate row shading.

Mark Hutchinson

  • Dont know if this will work, but how about the first line of the text in the column colored 'white' so it is not visible.You will then have to zap the leading using "qalz" of the line or some other trick  so the next line will not get leading and be in the correct position, If you dont' like the white text, do a <px> <pa> of the template "number" to get the width in the current font and also create a dummy zero leaded line with a <mh; "text width"> to get the column width to be the correct value.

  • in reply to Chris Leggett

    That's the whole point though Chris - I want to be able to tell XPP how wide to make the column, NOT by compose forward pages and pages to find it, I'm TELLING XPP - pretend '$123,456,789' is the widest text, now set the width according to font/point size AND make the $ alignment align as though there were content of '$123,456,789'.   In this way, I can change font/point size WITHOUT having to reset the specific measurement for column width.  Additionally, it allows any number of columns and tables to adhere to a predetermined template regardless of content.

  • Interesting request! We get round that by specifying the column widths - the only current solution. I can see issues here as the tabular (CALS) coding is verbose so if the table goes for "a few pages" you are going to hit the compose limit size wise. SO how do you propose to set the "widest text" column with for a column where the longest cell may be 10 pages further on?