Under Community Review

Further customization of PC Override table rules - a request

The new (to me) functionality in the pc override spec allows me to define a custom width for the first column width.

This is extremely useful for the type of work Toppan does, however as is always the case, two styles have come up in the last 2 weeks that have been outside the existing functionality. 

The scenarios both involved:

  • Four column PC override being used on a page layout with one text block.
  • These four columns needed to flow with the content on the page.
    • If content was added/removed above this section, the vertical position on the page would react (instead of keeping a static y-position)
  • Each of the first three pc override columns need to be the same width, while the last (right) column needed to be a couple of pica wider than the other three columns.

This could not be done as a table for these reasons

  • the style indicated broken top and bottom table boxes: the box rule would have to be "turned off" above/below table gutters
  • no extra "spacer" rows could exist - doing so would introduce additional space and divxml artifacts. 

Style sample:

Screenshot of XPP Ideas 'About Us' page layout with four columns. The first three columns are of equal width, and the fourth column is slightly wider. Text flows with the content on the page.

The specific functionality (that I would find immediately useful) is:

  • In a 4 column PC Override: Set the right most column to double the width of the others.
  • In a 3 column PC Override: Set the middle column to be wider than the other two columns. 
Thomas Mangan
  • in reply to Jonathan Dagresta

    Sharon had looked into tables in the support ticket I had originally opened up. 

    Unfortunately, it was faster/cheaper to take this away from XPP and make this an image. 

    There was a larger cost associated with creating a table and then setting up rules in a frill block. 

    Ultimately the 9.4 PC override allows us to handle one uneven column and behaves exactly the way the content in these styles worked in the designs.. I just needed to change the width of the last column instead of the first. 

  • in reply to Bart Terryn

    Hello Bart, 

    This has to do with structures that work well both in type and that come through in the divxml output. The amount of in-division code is also reduced if there are three quick table definitions vs. replicating a page column override using mark/return to mark with indents. 

    Kind regards
    Thomas

  • And another thought I had was to use a table, but without drawing any table rules, and then use frills processing and the available frills table system variables (such as position of table, columns, column gutters, and row depth) to draw the rules where you want them.

  • Thomas,

    Can you explain why a simple mark and return to mark would not work?
    The way I see you sample it looks like you don't want any of the columns to break over a page, so each column is unbreakable and has a definitive start.
    So I would think that a mark/return to mark solution would work. (but I do not know all the circumstances of course, so little do I know...)