Table Styles - Column Widths

[LarryTX]

I'm using RoboHelp HTML 8.0.2.206 in a WindowsXP environment.

Am I missing something or is there no way to set table widths and table column widths in the RoboHelp CSS editor? It seems that the editor always sets the table width to 100% and distributes the columns widths evenly (if you select four columns, each has a width of 25%; if you select five columns, each has a width of 20%, etc.) While a table width of 100% is fairly common, in almost a year of using RoboHelp (this time around), I have used tables many, many times, but I have never, ever wanted columns widths evenly distributed. In fact, most of the time, I actually prefer column widths unspecified letting the browser determine the "best fit" width.

I've gotten tired of having to remember to go into the HTML view every time I create a table to delete the <col style="width: 33.333%;" /> (or whatever percentage width) tags. Is this something that I need to create a bug report on? (It's clearly not a feature request; leaving something this essential out of the CSS editor is clearly a bug report.)

[Peter Grainge]

Pretty sure you have to define it for each table.

A bug is something that doesn't work as it should. From Adobe's perpective I think they would say things are working as designed and that what you want is a new feature. You can argue it any way you like but I recommend a feature request will get your requirement to their attention in a more productive way.

Please follow this link.

http://www.Adobe.com/cfusion/mmform/index.cfm?name=wishform&product=38

Can you control column width from the CSS? Surely CSS defines the borders and suchlike no matter how many columns.

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See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[LarryTX]

Thanks for the response. I submitted a bug report.

In CSS you can define column widths. Unfortunately, as far as I can tell, the RoboHelp engine inserts the column width definition into the table structure without any reference to the CSS file. Since that definition is more local than the external style sheet, the cascade would almost certainly make the browser ignore the external style sheet.

An !important designation might force the browser to pay attention to the style sheet, but as for as I know, there's no way to specify "no width for any arbitrary number of columns" in CSS. You would have to create a separate set of styles for every single number of columns that you might ever use, specify the col width instruction for each without a width attribute, and even then, the specificity of the local instruction for the table structure would almost certainly override the CSS rule. The base of the problem is that the RoboHelp engine sticks the specification in the table structure with no reference to CSS. No other WYSIWYG editor does that, including Dreamweaver.

[Peter Grainge]

OK but don't complain if when the report gets to the head of the queue (line) it is told to get in the correct queue and takes longer to process!

Thanks for the information about column in CSS. Once my tables are set up, column width is not an issue for me so I hadn't poked around.

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See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge