J.Pietschmann,
Thanks for your response. Is the algorithm for column-balancing
going to be change in the next release to make it work more accurately?
Thanks,
Kumar Puppala
-----Original Message-----
From: J.Pietschmann [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Wednesday, February 02, 2005 3:54 PM
To: fop-dev@xml.apache.org
Subject: Re: Dual Column Layout
Puppala, Kumar (LNG-DAY) wrote:
> I am having difficulty understanding how the dual column layout is
> implemented in FOP.
>
> Scenario 1:
> I set the property column-count="2" on my fo:region-body object. As such
the
> text appears in dual column format. If I have the page totally filled out,
> then everything seems to be fine. But if my document does not contain
enough
> text (usually the last page in my document), the text does not seem to be
> evenly distributed in both the columns. It first tries to fill the left
> column and then tries to fill the right column if there is an additional
> text.
As mandated by the spec.
> If this page is the last page and we don't have any additional text,
> the renderer should try to distribute it evenly on both columns. That is
the
> behavior I have seem on other viewers.
This can be forced by adding an empty block with span="all" at the
end of the flow.
> Scenario 2:
> If I keep switching between dual and single columns on the same page (
using
> the span="all" property on an fo:block within a page), the distribution
> between the columns seems to be happening but does not happen accurately.
I
> see more text on the left hand column than on the right hand column. Doing
> this would leave additional blank space on the right hand column before we
> switch to single column layout.
This is due to a simple algorithm for balancing. Getting column
balancing even somewhat right is quite complicated.
J.Pietschmann
