Breaking tables between pages and repeating the header

[Eric Lachance]

Is there any way to use the stylesheet to specify that, in a printed output, tables that are broken down between two pages should repeat the header (<thead>), as well as the <caption> caption (but adding (continued) in the end?)

I see this in printed manuals all the time, right now I have at least one place where the table is broken down manually in 3 parts, but I'd like for it to do it automatically since adding or removing any text in the manual may change where that table is displayed, thus force me to re-do the break points.

Basically, the table would be this:

Code: Select all

<table>
 <col/><col/>
 <caption>Table X-X</caption>
 <thead>
  <tr><td>Name</td><td>Description</td></tr>
 </thead>
 <tbody>
  <tr><td>Name X</td><td>Description X</td></tr>
  <tr><td>Name X</td><td>Description X</td></tr>
  <tr><td>Name X</td><td>Description X</td></tr>
  <tr><td>Name X</td><td>Description X</td></tr>
 </tbody>
</table>

If the table were to break down, here's what I'd like to happen (say it's broken in 2 parts):

Code: Select all

<table>
 <col/><col/>
 <caption>Table X-X</caption>
 <thead>
  <tr><td>Name</td><td>Description</td></tr>
 </thead>
 <tbody>
  <tr><td>Name X</td><td>Description X</td></tr>
  <tr><td>Name X</td><td>Description X</td></tr>
 </tbody>
</table>
<!-- page break caused by running out of space --->
<table>
 <col/><col/>
 <caption>Table X-X (continued)</caption>
 <thead>
  <tr><td>Name</td><td>Description</td></tr>
 </thead>
 <tbody>
  <tr><td>Name X</td><td>Description X</td></tr>
  <tr><td>Name X</td><td>Description X</td></tr>
 </tbody>
</table>

Is this even possible? I noticed I could set the page-break-before to avoid or always for a specific TR, but that's not automatic (nor does it re-add the header and caption).

[LTinker68]

I started adding the following code to my stylesheets years ago, and if I remember why, it was to have the header row of a table repeat across pages. I could be wrong about what it does, though.

Code: Select all

thead
{
	display: table-header-group;
}

[Eric Lachance]

Well, that works fine for the thead row, but not for the caption.

Good enough, I'll just do something else for the caption!

Thanks

[ChoccieMuffin]

This might be a completely silly suggestion (feel free to ignore it, or the lovely Lisa will tell me I've eaten too much stupid-cake today) but could you put the caption in another Header row? If you did that I am just guessing that the caption should repeat as well as the table heading.

But of course I could be completely wrong.

[LTinker68]

It's possible. You'd have to specify two header rows for the table, then merge the cells of the first row and move the caption to that row. If you're using a table stylesheet, you could set a pattern for the header rows and set the first row pattern to have a default background color (i.e., no background color) and set the second header row's pattern to a background color. The downside is that you'd have a border around the caption cell. And you'd probably want to insert a paragraph inside the caption row so you could specify a class, otherwise the caption would appear similar to a header column style, which by default is bold and centered, and you may want it smaller and not bold.

[Eric Lachance]

Thanks for the suggestions!

It's not critical that the caption be there - I think people are smart enough to realize that the table is split in 2 pages at a glance. After all, our clients are - generally - somewhat over the average in technical expertise. Can't rely on that too much, but it's still better than what it was before.

Cheers!