Merge Cell Problem

DickBryant · Post by **DickBryant** » Mon Sep 18, 2006 3:26 am

Welcome back, Sergey!

Having a problem with cell merge. Let's say I have a table with 4 columns - best width specified as 100 pixels for each cell in the table. I want to merge cell's 0 and 1 if cell 1 is empty and cells 2 and 3 if cell 3 is empty.

However, when I do this it changes the width of the table which before the merge was 400 pixels wide. What I want to happen is that when cells 1 and 3 are occupied I have a row of 4 100-pixel wide cells; when cell 1 is empty I have a 200 pixel-wide cell followed by two 100-pixel wide cells and when cell 3 is empty I have two 100-pixel wide cells followed by a 200 pixel-wide cell.

It seems like this is what SHOULD happen, but it doesn't. Do I need to do something other than initially setting all the best widths to 100?

Thanks,

Dick

Post by **Sergey Tkachenko** » Mon Sep 18, 2006 6:33 pm

I am sorry, but I do not understand the logic behind this.
Can you explain simpler, may be with pictures?

DickBryant · Post by **DickBryant** » Mon Sep 18, 2006 8:53 pm

OK, let me try by explaining the purpose. The table will be printed on Avery card stock, for example the 2 column by 5 row stock commonly used for business cards.

Each card is a "flashcard' used for studying some topic. Each card can display text on its left half and a graphic on its right half - but if either of these is not present, I want to devote the entire card to the information that is present. However, the new "cell" needs to use exactly the space that was previously reserved for two cells (the "text" cell and the "graphic" cell) if you wish.

The way the software is currently behaving, when I merge two of the cells the entire table changes width and the carefully placed and aligned table would no longer be able to be printed in alignment with the fixed-location cards on the Avery stock.

BTW, I have been able to get a table properly positioned and sized so that it prints accurately - as long as I don't use the cell merging feature. I'd really like to use this, though, as it would produce much better looking cards and would better use the available space.

Please let me know if this adequately conveys the issue.

Post by **Sergey Tkachenko** » Tue Sep 19, 2006 6:15 am

When you merge two table cells (Cell1 and Cell2), the resulting cell has BestWidth = Cell1.BestWidth+Cell2.BestWidth.
The resulting cell will be narrower than two original cells, because there is a spacing between unmerged cells. This spacing is (if 2 cells are merged):
L := CellPadding*2+CellBorderWidth*2+CellHSpacing.
If you add this L to the resulting cell BestWidth, the table must have the same width.

DickBryant · Post by **DickBryant** » Tue Sep 19, 2006 12:56 pm

I'll e-mail you a couple of screenshots, Sergey. This is not what is happening. When I merge two cells in a row of 4 cells where, say, all bestwidths have been set to 100 I should get something slightly smaller than 400 from what you say, but I don't - the table GROWS by 15-20% and the merged cell is much larger than the two cells that were there before the merge.

Dick