RE: Subject: text colums

[Woods, John T.]

How can I temporarily remove myself from the [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing
list.

Thanks,
John

-----Original Message-----
From: Joerg Pietschmann [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Thursday, March 21, 2002 8:37 AM
To: FOP User
Subject: Re: Subject: text colums


Lauren Commons <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I am producing pdfs that will have a bullet list that
> I want to display in two columns, like newspaper
> columns.  I won't know in advance how many items will
> be in the list.

I suppose you have
...
  <li>Item1</li>
  <li>Item2</li>
  <li>Item3</li>
...
and want to display
  o Item1         o Item3
  o Item2
or perhaps
  o Item1         o Item2
  o Item3
(note the difference)

This is not easy to achieve. A first shot would be to use
a two column table distribute the list items equally between
the columns. You have also to decide whether you want to use
one row in the table or a row for every pair of items.
A sample XSLT snippet (untested):
  <fo:table table-layout="fixed">
    <fo:table-column column-width="proportional-column-width()"/>
    <fo:table-column column-width="proportional-column-width()"/>
    <fo:table-body>
      <fo:table-row>
        <xsl:for-each select="li[position() div 2=0]">
          <fo:table-cell>
            <xsl:apply-templates>
          </fo:table-cell>
          <fo:table-cell>
            <xsl:apply-templates select="following-sibling:li">
          </fo:table-cell>
        </xsl:for-each>
      </fo:table-row>
    </fo:table-body>
  </fo:table>
This will generate the secont variant, with one row. If you want
multiple rows, move the <fo:table-row> into the xsl:for-each
The first variant is a bit harder to get.

Whether the table solution matches your expectations is up to
you. Having two columns with items flowing from the first
to the second column to fill a minimal area seems to be much
harder unless you want to have the whole page in two columns.

Ask on the XSL list for more ideas.

J.Pietschmann