Auto column width heuristic and local resolutions

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Niels
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Auto column width heuristic and local resolutions

Post by Niels »

Who can explain the auto column width heuristic? It is not satisfactory to me.
The screenshots show one disgusting example that I do not understand. Is there any kind of "neural network parameter" to apply for optimization?

One simple trick I learned is to pick the column with the content of the greatest width that I do not want to break and use non-breaking elements to achieve my desired layout.
An issue I still have is the absence of a non-breaking underscore.
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ChoccieMuffin
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Re: Auto column width heuristic and local resolutions

Post by ChoccieMuffin »

I share your pain. Autowidth just does its own thing, and the non-breaking underscore gets my goat too.

No answers, just empathising. Have a good Friday. :)
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Niels
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Re: Auto column width heuristic and local resolutions

Post by Niels »

Autowidth is not the only issue. Why can't we really fix width, either? I have a lot of tables, where I'd be happy to apply a fixed width as a workaround. But in print, it just does not want to listen to our commands...
ChoccieMuffin
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Re: Auto column width heuristic and local resolutions

Post by ChoccieMuffin »

Have you tried defining table stylesheets and applying them to your tables rather than relying on Flare to do things?
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Niels
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Re: Auto column width heuristic and local resolutions

Post by Niels »

Yes, we do use table stylesheets also in the cases where the issues occur.
fix column width in print.png
fix column width in print - even total width fixed.png
fix column width in print - outcome in PDF.png
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Niels
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Re: Auto column width heuristic and local resolutions

Post by Niels »

I must admit that I don't know why I am "relying on Flare to do things" when I manually want to set a fixed width.
Is there anyone out there who could explain?
Psider
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Re: Auto column width heuristic and local resolutions

Post by Psider »

I always used % widths for my tables with reasonable success (typically I used 25 75 and 20 20 60). So you could try percentages rather than fixed pixel widths and see how that goes.

On a side note, I couldn't say for sure, but probably you are fighting standard HTML/CSS table behaviour. Read the text in "Default Tables are Weird" , especially the 4th example table - I had a little giggle at the wording, but it does seem to illustrate the issue you see with 'auto'.

(I couldn't comment on whether the fixed layout option discussed in the article would work with Flare, given that what html/css elements are support in the pdf conversion is a black box as far as I can tell.)
ChoccieMuffin
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Re: Auto column width heuristic and local resolutions

Post by ChoccieMuffin »

Psider wrote:I always used % widths for my tables with reasonable success (typically I used 25 75 and 20 20 60). So you could try percentages rather than fixed pixel widths and see how that goes.

On a side note, I couldn't say for sure, but probably you are fighting standard HTML/CSS table behaviour. Read the text in "Default Tables are Weird" , especially the 4th example table - I had a little giggle at the wording, but it does seem to illustrate the issue you see with 'auto'.

(I couldn't comment on whether the fixed layout option discussed in the article would work with Flare, given that what html/css elements are support in the pdf conversion is a black box as far as I can tell.)
Can you give a link to the article you're talking about, psider? Sounds worth a read.
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Psider
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Re: Auto column width heuristic and local resolutions

Post by Psider »

Oops. Copy paste error. Emphasis on paste error :P

https://css-tricks.com/fixing-tables-long-strings/
Niels
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Re: Auto column width heuristic and local resolutions

Post by Niels »

Thank you all for any suggestions. I will try harder, again and again. Still this is my QUESTION to the MADWORLD:
I am already deep in the process of trying to find workarounds. I know that CSS and the inheritance rules are complex. What I will never ever accept and understand is that I cannot set a fixed width to manually override any other outer space...
The fact that I am trying to set a fixed width (as a workaround) is already sad.
The fact that this is not possible is a "GAU".
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