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6. Tables
[> 7.][< 5.0][^^^]
6.0 Tabular presentation of information
[> 7.][< 6.][^^][^^^]
A tabular presentation arranges information in a rigid partitioning of groups
[[1] - tuples of aligned block-level layout areas
[[2] - see [Figure 5.1] for an example of bilingual text formatting
 [2] - a collection (rows) of collections (columns) of information
 [2] - columns and rows are not being used as indices of a Cartesian plane
[[3] - the grid is only a layout strategy
][2] - e.g. columns of aligned formatted paragraphs of polyglot (multiple language) text
[[3] - each piece of information is a stand-alone paragraph where each language's paragraph has a different length thus requiring the first line of all translations of the next paragraph to be aligned
]][1] - block-level layout areas in a two-dimensional relationship between members of collections
[[2] - traditional Cartesian arrangement of information at the intersection of indexed row and column axes
 [2] - e.g. the corresponding percentages of male and female population at the intersection of age groups in the columns and countries in the rows
[[3] - each piece of information could be a two-line presentation of the percentages for each gender
 [3] - the reader correlates the age group column with the country row to find the information in the corresponding cell
]]]
Supports numerous block-level areas arranged in the inline-progression direction
[[1] - table contains rows (in block-progression direction) of cells (in inline-progression direction) where each cell contains block-level areas (in block-progression direction)
[[2] - block-level areas would otherwise be arranged in the block-progression direction
][1] - column widths can differ but are fixed for the length of the table
[[2] - widths can be specified values in the supplied objects and properties
 [2] - widths can be based on an automatic weighing of the contents of all of the cells of the table
[[3] - e.g. HTML browser web agents balance column widths based on content
]]]
Two layout objectives using the same layout constructs:
[[1] - a collection of tuples of information
[[2] - each member of a tuple in a column
 [2] - each tuple in a row
][1] - a coordinate-based layout of cells of information
[[2] - one ordinate along the columns
 [2] - the other ordinate along the rows
 [2] - the corresponding cells in the main area
]]
[Figure 6.1: Differing uses of the tabular layout construct
Two pages are shown, each with room for twenty-four cells arranged in six rows of four cells each row.
The emphasis on the left page shows all twenty-four cells of equal weight arranged in fixed order as a grid.
The emphasis on the right page shows a typical table, with the topmost-leftmost cell absent, the cells across the top indicating column values, the cells along the left edge indicating the row values, a border between these cells and the "main" portion of the table, and the main portion filled with cells.
]
Of note:
[[1] - the column widths are fixed to the same values for all rows in the entire table
[[2] - as in HTML the widths may be based on a balancing of the content of the columns in all of the rows (default)
]]
An example of a Cartesian grid presentation of hockey standings:
[Figure 6.2: Cartesian grid tabular presentation
A group of three tables is shown containing hockey team division standings (Ottawa leads the conference standings). Each table is a Cartesian grid of team name and standing statistics.
]
Note:
[[1] - rows are spanned for the "Columns" and "Points" headings
 [1] - columns are spanned for the "Games" heading
]
Independent of the organization of source information
[[1] - the original data needn't be modeled by a table construct
[[2] - historical use of structured information tools often forced information designers to model explicit table constructs
 [2] - such models insufficiently capture the semantics of the information being related
][1] - information from any model can be presented in a tabular fashion
[[2] - transformation can rearrange the source information into the tabular relationship
]]
An XSL-FO table has a compound structure with many well-defined behaviors
[[1] - a block-level construct that breaks the flow in the block-progression direction
 [1] - the header rows and footer rows are constructs repeated on all pages where the table's body rows are rendered
[[2] - the caption is only shown on the first page containing part of the table
][1] - column properties can be specified once for all cells of rows that are in a given column
[[2] - the linear serialization of a two-dimensional construct necessarily favors one dimension over the other
 [2] - cells are contained within rows, not columns, so a column-oriented construct is necessary to address the second dimension of property assignment
][1] - column-spanning and row-spanning features provide flexible table cell definition
]
The XSL-FO objects covered in this chapter are:
[[1] - <[table-and-caption]> ([6.7.2])
[[2] - the parent object of a captioned collection of tabular content
][1] - <[table-caption]> ([6.7.5])
[[2] - the caption of a captioned collection of tabular content
][1] - <[table]> ([6.7.3])
[[2] - the parent object of an uncaptioned collection of tabular content
][1] - <[table-column]> ([6.7.4])
[[2] - the specification of common columnar properties
][1] - <[table-header]> ([6.7.6])
[[2] - the rows of tabular content repeated at the before-edge of every break in body content
][1] - <[table-footer]> ([6.7.7])
[[2] - the rows of tabular content repeated at the after-edge of every break in body content
][1] - <[table-body]> ([6.7.8])
[[2] - the rows of tabular content flowed as the body content
][1] - <[table-row]> ([6.7.9])
[[2] - a row of tabular content
][1] - <[table-cell]> ([6.7.10])
[[2] - a column of a row of tabular content
]]

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+//ISBN 978-1-894049::CSL::Courses::PFUX//DOCUMENT Practical Formatting Using XSL-FO 2008-01-27 17:30UTC//EN
Practical Formatting Using XSL-FO
Seventh Edition - 2008-01-27
ISBN 978-1-894049-19-1
Copyright © Crane Softwrights Ltd.