Conference vaxuum::online_bookbuilding

    Which version of DOCUMENT and the online bookbuilding tools are you
    using?
    
    Thanks,
    
    Mary

    Are you using formal tables?  I have only had problems like you
    describe with informal tables (i.e., no number and caption).  Bookreader
    adjusts the window to the size of the table when it is formal.
    
    If you are using a formal table, I don't know what's wrong, but you
    will need to supply more information, like what versions you are using,
    etc.  Online.reference and online.handbook are the only two online
    doctypes I've heard about.
    
    
    Susan

See Note 218 -- I had this problem with informal tables that had "extra"
wide columns for prettiness' sake in the hardcopy. Another example of
"doctype-specific" coding that should be avoided in the future.

The workaround Mary mentions was included in later kits, but didn't entirely
solve the problem in extreme cases. In those cases, I had to recode tables
for slightly narrower columns to get them to display properly.

Apparently the online tools can adjust informal tables to fit the screen
when the text "fills up" the columns, by adjusting the font size. However,
when the text doesn't actually fill the column width, adjusting the font size
doesn't always do the trick!

(This is my naive, non-programmer view of the problem.)

FYI, we coded this way originally so that all the tables in a reference chapter
would be the same width, regardless of what they contained. Seemed like a good
idea at the time...but nooooo

Ross

Here is some more information about what is happening.
First, I believe that I am useing unformal tables (they have no argument to the
table tag).
I am useing version 1.2A of VAX Document and the online bookbuilding software
from 20-sep-89.

Here is a copy of some of the sdml code.  This is not a complete table because
the table has a number of table units in it.  This is only one of the table
units.

Thanks for all of your help




<table>
<table_attributes>(maximum\multipage)
<table_setup>(8\11\6\2\1\1\12\7)
<table_key> <emphasis>(TABLE KEY\BOLD)
<list>(callout)
<le>Mechanism: Ref=Reference, Val=Value, Desc=Descriptor
<le>I/O: I=Input, O=Output, B=Both input and output
<le>Required: Req=Required, Opt=Optional
<endlist>
<endtable_key>
<table_unit>
<table_unit_heads>(<span>(8)VERSION)
<table_unit_heads>(Name\Type\
<table_keyref>Mech <callout_ref>(1)\
<table_keyref>I/O <callout_ref>(2)\
<table_keyref>Req <callout_ref>(3)\
Property\Element / Data\Description)
<table_row>(defaultAttachment\
MCS_SMALLINT\
Val\
I\
Opt\
defaultAttachment\
N/A\
If set overides how this version or
its sister versions are attached to 
collections as specified by the user's
context.
)
<endtable_unit>

I wanted to add some additional information about my last reply.  The real
problem is that the last column of the table is a description.  When the
description is a sentence or longer (which most of them are), the formater
wraps about every word (sometimes every syllable).  When we generate hardcopy
the wrapping is every few words which is reasonable.  We also get many "line
too long" warning during bookbuilding.  

Thanks
jcr

    Yes, I looked at the table yesterday and the last column does not look
    good. This has been a perennial problem with online tables: we use a
    much narrower margin (~34picas) and much larger font (12pt, or 10pt
    for wide tables) than the hardcopy doctypes do. This means that coding
    that works fine for hardcopy output may not work very well at all
    for online output, particularly if the table is wide, as yours is
    with 8 columns. Text in the far right column (for which you do not
    specify any width parameters and which is left to TeX to format in
    whatever space is left) complicates the problem.
    
    I'm afraid I do not have much to suggest under our present means of
    formatting tables. Tables are the one area where online and hardcopy
    seem to be most incompatible. The table would look fine if it were
    coded as a formal table. It looks better if you use \WIDE instead of
    \MAXIMUM (but it still doesn't look wonderful). You could probably make
    it look OK by fiddling with the <table_setup> parameters, but then you
    may not like the hardcopy output.
    
    We have noted this problem before and it is on the wishlist to take
    a look at whether we can improve our table software to handle both
    online and hardcopy tables better.
    
    Thanks,
    
    Mary