CALS Table colspec and PrinceXML

[donlammers]

Although colspec is editable (and seems to work if you believe the display), none of the values seem to be respected by the com.oxygenxml.pdf.css plugin (or possibly by PrinceXML itself). I can, for instance, set the text alignment on the whole table, or set alignment on individual cells, but setting the alignment in the colspec has no effect on the PDF output. colwidth as set in the colspec element also does not seem to have any effect, nor do cosep and rowsep. Is this a known limitation? We have one set of tables that the default does not get right, and have currently resorted to putting a paragraph full of non-breaking spaces in a row that was being rendered way too narrow.

[Radu]

Hi,

I think we fixed at least part of these problems in Oxygen 18.1. We also updated the GitHub repository with the fixes.
Could you tell me what Oxygen version you are using?

Regards,
Radu

[donlammers]

I am on Editor version 18.1, build 2016.1026.19. I believe that everyone else has now updated to version 18.1 -- some on Author and some on Editor, but I can't speak for build numbers.

[Dan]

Hello,
Here are some details and workarounds:

About the column width:
Since 18.1 oXygen converts the DITA colspec @colwidth attribute to a @style attribute. For example:

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colwidth = 0.3* -> style = 'width:33%'

colwidth = 20 -> style = 'width:20'

This width property is interpreted by Prince, so it should alter the column widths. I tested it and it works for tables like:

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<table

    frame="all" id="table_uyw_mlm_1y" >

    <title>My test table</title>

    <tgroup cols="2">

        <colspec colname="c1" colnum="1" colwidth="0.3*" />

        <colspec colname="c2" colnum="2" colwidth="1.0*"/>

        <thead>

            <row>

                <entry>Header1</entry>

                <entry>Header2</entry>

            </row>

        </thead>

        <tbody >

            <row>

                <entry>1</entry>

                <entry>2</entry>

            </row>

            <row>

                <entry>3</entry>

                <entry>4</entry>

            </row>

        </tbody>

    </tgroup>

</table>

About the text align:
I tried converting also the colspec @align attribute to a value in the @style attribute:

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align = right -> style = 'text-align: right'

but Prince does not apply this property to the table cells from that column.

I recommend setting the @align attribute on the "entry" elements from the table.


About the @rowsep and @colsep
There is no CSS counterpart of these attributes set on colspec.
I recomend to move those attributes to the "entry" elements from the table, then write a CSS to style the entries based on these attributes and add it to the transformation scenario, as "args.css" parameter.
A very simple CSS for that could be:

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     /*

      * Deal with @rowsep and @colsep. 

      * 

      * These attributes can be set on "table", "tgroup", "row", and 

      * "entry" elements. The "tbody" does not have such attributes.

      * 

      * The values are inherited from the parents. The last row does 

      * not have a row separator, and the cells from the last column do 

      * not have column separators.

      */          

     *[class~="topic/table"][rowsep = '1']  > *[class~="topic/tgroup"]:not([rowsep]) > *[class~="topic/tbody"] > *[class~="topic/row"]:not([rowsep]):not(:last-child) > *[class~="topic/entry"]:not([rowsep]),

     *[class~="topic/tgroup"][rowsep = '1'] > *[class~="topic/tbody"] > *[class~="topic/row"]:not([rowsep]):not(:last-child) > *[class~="topic/entry"]:not([rowsep]),     

     *[class~="topic/row"][rowsep = '1']:not(:last-child) > *[class~="topic/entry"]:not([rowsep]),

     *[class~="topic/row"]:not(:last-child) > *[class~="topic/entry"][rowsep = '1']{     

        border-bottom:1pt solid black;

      } 



     *[class~="topic/table"][colsep = '1']  > *[class~="topic/tgroup"]:not([colsep]) > *[class~="topic/tbody"] > *[class~="topic/row"]:not([colsep]) > *[class~="topic/entry"]:not([colsep]):not(:last-child),

     *[class~="topic/tgroup"][colsep = '1'] > *[class~="topic/tbody"] > *[class~="topic/row"]:not([colsep]) > *[class~="topic/entry"]:not([colsep]):not(:last-child),

     *[class~="topic/row"][colsep = '1'] > *[class~="topic/entry"]:not([colsep]):not(:last-child),

     *[class~="topic/entry"][colsep = '1']:not(:last-child){     

        border-right:1pt solid black;

      }

This CSS will be included in the next oXygen release (19).

[Dan]

Another approach is to set an @outputclass attribute on your table, then match it and style it from the CSS. This works specially if you have all entries from a column styled the same. For example to add row separators for the first column (I use element names, not DITA classes values for simplicity):

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table[outputclass='myOutputClass'] row > entry:nth-child(1) {

  border-bottom:1px solid red;

}



table[outputclass='myOutputClass'] row:last-child > entry:nth-child(1) {

  border-bottom:none;

}

[Radu]

Hi,

Just to update this thread, we released Oxygen 19.0 and Dan's fixes should be bundled with it.

Regards,
Radu