How do I mimic Word's column feature?

[egag21]

I want columns just like Microsoft Word has, but I don't want to do it with tables. Is there a way to take a list and make it balance itself between columns without a lot of effort or headache?

[LTinker68]

You can do that in Flare v4. Search Flare's help or download the print guide (Help > Guides > Printed Output Guide).

[Richard Ferrell]

Page Layout would allow you to have 2 colums on a page.

[egag21]

Thanks, but I don't think I made myself clear. Here's the situation. I have several long lists where each bullet point is one to five words long. I would like to make these lists double columned to conserve paper and make them look better. I don't want the entire page double columned, just the list. This is relatively easy to do in Word, but the only way I can think to do it in Flare is to create a table. Tables are very cumbersome, especially in Flare. I'd rather just create a <div> or something that would format the text list into two columns. Any ideas?

[LTinker68]

If you're outputting to Word then you can't use DIVs, as Word doesn't recognize the DIV tag. (Although I haven't tested this in v4, but I'm assuming it's still the same.)

So if you're creating online and print outputs, then you'll want to use tables.

[egag21]

I'm outputting to WebHelp and directly to PDF. Looks like I'm up a creek.

[LTinker68]

I'm outputting to WebHelp and directly to PDF. Looks like I'm up a creek.

If you create a plain table in Flare (one not associated with a table stylesheet) then it shouldn't be a problem. That said, I almost always have to open the topic in the Internal Text Editor to tweak something in the table. On the other hand, I have to do that in Dreamweaver a lot, too, so I'm used to it.

[KevinDAmery]

I haven't had a chance to try it - could you use a text box to get the effect you're after? You should then be able to apply columns to the box (in theory).

A text box is a type of Div, so as Lisa mentioned it won't work in Word output. But it *should* work in direct PDF output afaik.

[RamonS]

I just wonder what Word does when you craft such a two column section in a document and then save it as HTML.

[egag21]

I experimented with Word 2007 and no dice. The HTML it outputs just has the text in a single column. I guess this just isn't possible in HTML without tables.

Here's a corallary question, does Flare have a "Convert Text to Table" feature? If it is there, I've looked and haven't found it.

[LTinker68]

Here's a corallary question, does Flare have a "Convert Text to Table" feature? If it is there, I've looked and haven't found it.

There is an option when pasting to paste as a table. But I haven't tried it, so I don't know if it only works when copying a table and pasting as a table, or if you can grab any text and have it paste in as a table. If not, then it might be easier to take the two columns in Word, make them one column, convert them to a table, then copy-and-paste the table into Flare.

[LTinker68]

I just wonder what Word does when you craft such a two column section in a document and then save it as HTML.

It created DIVs in the Word-generated HTML file. Go figure. But it didn't set them up properly so that the DIVs were positioned side by side. Instead, it had the contents of one column then later in the page it had the contents of the second column.

[mitches]

I create a table of one row with two columns. It looks good except I'm stuck with substantial indents in front of the bullets.

[egag21]

Yeah, if you go that route you have to create a modified version of each style you want to use in the table. Then, I've had problems getting paragraph styles to appear the same in a table as they would if they weren't in a table. I've had much better luck keeping things simple by using the TD and TH styles, but these only work if you have one paragraph in each cell. Such a hassle. This is the main reason I'm not wasting my time reformatting my lists into two column tables.

[KevinDAmery]

Did you ever try the text box approach?

If tables turn out to be the only way to go, you can use complex selectors to control the appearance of the styles rather than creating separate classes.

[egag21]

I looked at text boxes, but I couldn't find a "column" property for them. I could create two text boxes side by side, but that too would be more trouble than it is worth.

[doc_guy]

I create a table of one row with two columns. It looks good except I'm stuck with substantial indents in front of the bullets.

(I haven't completely read this thread yet, so I'm sorry if this has already been addressed)

What you want to do here is use complex selectors in your style sheet. I think, in this case, you want to open your style sheet in a text editor and add the following class:

Code: Select all

td * li {
        margin-left: 0px;
}

This tells the CSS that whenever it encounters an LI element that is a descendant of a TD element, to apply special formatting rules to that LI. It won't affect regular lists in your document. They will still use the normal LI settings. This will just affect LI elements that are inside tables. These LI elements will have all the standard LI attributes, except for those attributes that you explicitly change in this class setting. So you can just modify the margin, and the rest of the attributes will be inherited from the plain LI style settings.

You may need to mess with the value, or add other style attributes, depending on how you want lists inside tables to appear. But this should get you started at least.

Let us know if you have any more questions about it.

[egag21]

doc_guy, I think your tip will work. I haven't tried it yet, but it sure sounds plausible. I'll let you know how it goes. Thanks!