Table and Column Width Control

This section provides a tutorial example on how to control table width and column widths with table[@width] and table-column[@column-width] attributes.

By default, a "table" formatting object will take the full width of the parent content area. Column widths will be automatically calculated based their contents.

If you want to control table width and column widths, you can use table[@width] and table-column[@column-width] attributes, as shown in the following XSL-FO example, Table-and-Column-Width-Control.fo:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<!-- Table-and-Column-Width-Control.fo
 - Copyright (c) 2006 HerongYang.com. All Rights Reserved.
-->
<fo:root xmlns:fo="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Format">
 <fo:layout-master-set>
  <fo:simple-page-master master-name="page" 
   margin="0.1in" page-height="5in" page-width="5in">
   <fo:region-body region-name="body" background-color="#eeffff"/>
  </fo:simple-page-master>
 </fo:layout-master-set>
 <fo:page-sequence master-reference="page">
  <fo:flow flow-name="body">
<fo:block>Table with relative column widths:</fo:block>
<fo:table width="3in">
 <fo:table-column border-width="2px" border-style="solid"
  column-width="20%"/>
 <fo:table-column border-width="2px" border-style="solid"
  column-width="30%"/>
 <fo:table-column border-width="2px" border-style="solid"/>
 <fo:table-body>
  <fo:table-row border-width="2px" border-style="solid" 
   background-color="#ffddff">
   <fo:table-cell padding="8pt">
    <fo:block>?</fo:block></fo:table-cell>
   <fo:table-cell padding="8pt">
    <fo:block>U+2602</fo:block></fo:table-cell>
   <fo:table-cell padding="8pt">
    <fo:block>Umbrella</fo:block></fo:table-cell>
  </fo:table-row>
  <fo:table-row border-width="2px" border-style="solid" 
   background-color="#ffddff">
   <fo:table-cell padding="8pt">
    <fo:block>?</fo:block></fo:table-cell>
   <fo:table-cell padding="8pt">
    <fo:block>U+260E</fo:block></fo:table-cell>
   <fo:table-cell padding="8pt">
    <fo:block>Telephone</fo:block></fo:table-cell>
  </fo:table-row>
 </fo:table-body>
</fo:table>
<fo:block margin-top="12pt">
 Table with fixed column widths:</fo:block>
<fo:table>
 <fo:table-column border-width="2px" border-style="solid"
  column-width="0.5in"/>
 <fo:table-column border-width="2px" border-style="solid"
  column-width="1.0in"/>
 <fo:table-column border-width="2px" border-style="solid"
  column-width="2.0in"/>
 <fo:table-body>
  <fo:table-row border-width="2px" border-style="solid" 
   background-color="#ffddff">
   <fo:table-cell 
    padding="8pt"><fo:block>?</fo:block></fo:table-cell>
   <fo:table-cell 
    padding="8pt"><fo:block>U+262E</fo:block></fo:table-cell>
   <fo:table-cell 
    padding="8pt"><fo:block>Peace</fo:block></fo:table-cell>
  </fo:table-row>
  <fo:table-row border-width="2px" border-style="solid" 
   background-color="#ffddff">
   <fo:table-cell 
    padding="8pt"><fo:block>?</fo:block></fo:table-cell>
   <fo:table-cell 
    padding="8pt"><fo:block>U+262F</fo:block></fo:table-cell>
   <fo:table-cell 
    padding="8pt"><fo:block>Yin Yang</fo:block></fo:table-cell>
  </fo:table-row>
 </fo:table-body>
</fo:table>
  </fo:flow>
 </fo:page-sequence>
</fo:root>

If you process this example XSL-FO document with Apache FOP, you will see two tables with table width and columns widths controlled:

Table and Column Width Control
Table and Column Width Control

Table of Contents

 About This Book

 Introduction of XSL-FO

 Apache™ FOP (Formatting Objects Processor)

 RenderX XEP as an XSL-FO Tool

 Introduction of Area Model

 XSL-FO Document Basics and Examples

 Page Layout Masters

 Block-Level Formatting Objects

 Inline-Level Formatting Objects

 Including Graphics in XSL-FO document

Table of Rows and Columns

 Table Formatting Object Tree

 Table Cell Borders Collapsed and Separated

 Table Row Borders and Column Borders

 Table Column Headers and Footers

Table and Column Width Control

 Table Column and Row Merge or Span

 Table with Caption

 List, Item, Label, and Body

 Floating Blocks - "float" and "footnote"

 Hyperlinks, Table of Contents and Indexes

 Headers and Footers using "static-content"

 Font Attributes and Font Families

 Apache FOP Font Configurations

 RenderX XEP Font Configurations

 Converting HTML to PDF

 References

 Full Version in PDF/ePUB