Finding over-width tables (and cleaning up transformation warnings?)

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chrispitude
Posts: 907
Joined: Thu May 02, 2019 2:32 pm

Finding over-width tables (and cleaning up transformation warnings?)

Post by chrispitude »

Hi all,

Today I was asked how our writers can find and fix over-width tables in our PDFs. I do see an over-width table message in the transformation message summary (look for the "SEE HERE"):

Code: Select all

Description: [CH] Invalid property encountered on "fo:inline": box-sizing (See position 16:2623)
Description: [CH] No PropertyMaker registered for box-sizing. Ignoring property.
Description: [CH] Invalid property encountered on "fo:inline": box-sizing (See position 16:6424)
Description: [CH] Invalid property encountered on "fo:inline": box-sizing (See position 16:9730)
Description: [CH] Invalid property encountered on "fo:inline": box-sizing (See position 16:13534)
Description: [CH] In collapsing border model a table does not have padding (see http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS2/tables.html#collapsing-borders), but a non-zero value for padding was found. The padding will be ignored. (See position 20:2112)
Description: [CH]        Columns too wide in the auto table. fo:table, location: 20:2112   <--- SEE HERE
Description: [CH] The contents of fo:page-number line 1 exceed the available area in the inline-progression direction by 5560 millipoints. (See position 16:3539)
but it's hiding among lots of other messages.

My questions are,
  • How do I clean up these other messages? Is this a sign of something I need to fix in my own CSS
  • How does the writer map a "columns too wide" message to a particular DITA topic file or table, or at least get help finding it manually in the PDF (less desirable)?
I appreciate the challenges of this being in the Apache FOP domain and trying to map this back to the DITA content! Still, any help is appreciated. :)
Dan
Posts: 501
Joined: Mon Feb 03, 2003 10:56 am

Re: Finding over-width tables (and cleaning up transformation warnings?)

Post by Dan »

Indeed the error messages are issued when the intermediate FO file is processed and are pointing to lines and columns in this file. You can open the .fo file in oXygen and identify the markup. Further you can use the text content of that table to identify the original topic.

I will record an improvement about reporting besides the location a text fragment from the element that causes the warnings and the ID of the element, to make easier the mapping.

The "Columns too wide in the auto table." warning are issued when the minimum sizes of the columns from a table with an automatic layout are summing to a value greater than the width of the page.

The "Invalid property encountered on "fo:inline": box-sizing" compains about an unsupported property in Chemistry. Please search for this property in your customization CSS and make sure you place it in a @media screen { } block.

Many regards,
Dan
chrispitude
Posts: 907
Joined: Thu May 02, 2019 2:32 pm

Re: Finding over-width tables (and cleaning up transformation warnings?)

Post by chrispitude »

Thanks Dan! That would be great.

I like the idea of a text snippet and enclosing-element iD. It would be even more awesome if we could somehow take the user to that ID'ed element in that topic file when the error is double-clicked (if possible). We have writers who are not quite technical enough to manually chase down that reference.
chrispitude
Posts: 907
Joined: Thu May 02, 2019 2:32 pm

Re: Finding over-width tables (and cleaning up transformation warnings?)

Post by chrispitude »

Hi Dan,

Rather than trying to trace back through the output chain back to the source DITA, would it be easier to have a transformation parameter to place a visual indicator (red marker, bar, etc.) overtop whatever object is triggering the over-width message?

We create both draft and final PDFs, and having such visual indicators in the draft PDF would fit our flow perfectly.
julien_lacour
Posts: 483
Joined: Wed Oct 16, 2019 3:47 pm

Re: Finding over-width tables (and cleaning up transformation warnings?)

Post by julien_lacour »

Hello Chris,

I added an improvement on our tracking system to add a visual indicator besides the text added in console.
I will let you know where the new version will be available.
Edit: The warning and error messages have been improved since Oxygen 23.1.

Regards,
Julien
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