Re: Robohelp 4: Borders in tables?

[Misti Tucker <mtucker2 -at- E-MAIL -dot- COM>]

*** Resending note of 10/03/97 12:28

Misti: please post to the techwr-l? thanks!

-Becca


from the winhelp-list:
Gail Isen, Brad Lindamood, and others suggested the technique that Gail
calls "Format the Text, Not the Cell."  This allows much more elaborate
formatting, including vertical rules.

1. Create the table in word.

2. Set the space between the columns to 0.

3. If you're going to be using vertical rules, set the space between
paragraphs to 0 pts above and 0 pts below.

4. Highlight only the text in the cell you are going to format.
You don't need to highlight all the text, several words will suffice.

5. Use paragraph formatting to apply borders to the cells. (Format >
Borders and Shading.)

 Make sure the title of the dialog box is "Paragraph Borders and
Shading."  If the title is "Table Borders and Shading" you've selected
the entire cell rather than just the text.
6. In the Paragraph Borders and Shading dialog box, use the From Text
field to add extra space above and below the paragraph to center it in
the table row.

This works a treat, and you have an editable table in the Help project
.RTF itself, rather than relying on an external application (such as
Excel) to access the table for editing.

It does have one drawback: there is a slight gap between the cells in
the horizontal rules.  There's an easy way to fix that, however.
In essence, what you do is define your paragraph with a hanging outdent
that overlaps the paragraph in the previous cell.

1. Structure the paragraph to have a hanging outdent (Format >
Paragraph.  Select Hanging from the Special dropdown list box.)  The
exact amount doesn't matter; I just left it at .25" to be safe.

2. Change the paragraph left margin to -.25.  The Indentation section of
the Format Paragraph: Indents and Spacing tab should look like the
following:

3. Set a tab in the paragraph to 0".

4. Place your cursor at the beginning of the text in the cell you're
formatting, and press CTRL + TAB to insert a tab at the beginning of the
text.

Note that if you use this method to get rid of the pesky gaps, the
vertical rule will be at the outside edge of the hanging indent.  Since
the left margin of one cell overlaps the right margin of the previous
cell, you could get overlapping vertical rules if you apply both left
and right borders to all cells.  This would give the effect of an empty
column between each real column.


mtucker2 -at- e-mail -dot- com wrote:
>
> *** Resending note of 10/03/97 06:12
>
> I did a lot of searching through the archives and Blue Sky's web site, but
> I haven't found an answer on how to put borders in tables. When I try to
> compile, I get the error "table formatting too complex".
> Does anyone have some magical solution to this border-in-tables problem?
>
> I'm creating Win 3.1* help files with Word 7, Robohelp 4.
>
> Thanks very much.
>
> John
>
> John_Trollope -at- watsonwyatt -dot- co -dot- uk
              <TECHWR-L -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU>

--
Becca Price       beccap -at- rust -dot- net

"I used to have brains...now I have children."

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