Structuring Documents with FrameBuilder

Tips and other flashes of inspiration

• Tables
  • Bold headings
  • Footnotes
  • Hidden and visible tables
  • Line breaks in table cells
  • Multiple paragraphs in a single cell
  • Straddling
  • The table continuation variable

Tables

Tables present some interesting issues online. First, make sure your tables follow the requirements listed in the "Do I need to use mifmucker?" section.

Bold headings

Footnotes

Hidden and visible tables

All hidden tables must be wrapped in <Table> => <None> to be hidden online and to not be counted in PinPoint's list of tables.

Currently, an online table shows all of its cell borders or none of them--there is no selective border display.

Line breaks in table cells

Having said that, here are some criteria the cell contents must meet if the suggestions below are going to be followed:

• There is a line break (RETURN or SHIFT-RETURN) for each line (except the last) of the cell.
• The character font is consistent across the entire cell--no mixing of fonts.

• If you want only a break and not an empty line between the sections of the cell, put in a soft carriage return (SHIFT-RETURN).
• If you want an empty line, put in a paragraph break (RETURN). (There seems to be an exception where the break comes just before the beginning of a new element; hard CRs tend to be "eaten" here, while paragraphs produce a single line break. This looks like a bug.)

You could wrap it as follows:

<TableContents> => <ExampleBlock> =><ExampleSegment>

This is line one SHIFT-RETURN

This is line two SHIFT-RETURN

This is line three

</ExampleSegment></ExampleBlock></TableContents>

Now assume the table cell contains monospace text and line breaks that you want preserved, as in the following table.

You could wrap it as follows:

<TableContents> => <ExampleBlockVerbatim>

This is line one SHIFT-RETURN

This is line two SHIFT-RETURN

This is line three

</ExampleBlockVerbatim></TableContents>

These solutions, which may or may not work, depend on using verbatim justification in the style sheet for table elements. Verbatim justification means that the line breaks are preserved just as you see them on the screen. Since visible line breaks may be different depending on whether or not display of element boundaries is turned on, be sure element display is always turned off when you export your document.

Table cells that contain just a single paragraph do not need to be structured at all. Word wrap in these cells will be normal-- that is, the para will be left justified.

See the "Multiple paragraphs in a single cell" section for a related discussion.

Multiple paragraphs in a single cell

Two or more paragraphs in one cell are treated as a single paragraph--there will be no break between them.

Peter is currently working with the idea of using bullet lists in table cells in order to provide multiple paragraphs in a single cell. Each paragraph will be an item in the list. The bullets will not be present.

Straddling

The table continuation variable

The table continuation variables sometimes add the string (Continued) to the beginning of table titles in PinPoint. The altered titles can be seen in the TOC view (when it is set to List of tables) and in the Main view itself.

If your tables show these title changes, complete the following procedure immediately before exporting to SGML:

1. Save your document.
2. Change all the variables to text strings.
3. Export to SGML.
4. Revert to the last saved version of your file.

Please submit comments and questions about these pages to scox@convex.com