Here's my problem: I want to write a generic java method capable of writing various size tables to a PDF file in a fit-to-page manner. I will generate a PDF-FO stylesheet and feed it to the FOP engine directly inside the method, therefore there is no XSLT involved. However, each table is different in terms of the number of rows and columns it contains.
What I need to know is whether there is an easier way than what I propose below. Did I forget anything big? Thanks in advance for any help you can offer! Proposal -------- 1. I will have some default font-size, perhaps 10pt. If the table generated with this size font is small enough to fit on the page (I'm really just talking width here, I will let FOP line-break the table and continue on the next page if necessary), then make the table just wide enough to contain everything then put it on the page centered horizontally. If the table would be too wide to fit with a 10pt font, use a font just small enough to make it fit. The table would appear on the page at or very near the full available width. 2. To do this right I believe I need to embed a TrueType font in the PDF. If I understand the nature of TrueType correctly, this means I can choose whatever pt size I want without worrying whether it is actually present or not in the font definition. When I generate the font metrics with TTFReader, it looks like I will be best off using the "-enc ansi" option. 3. My method will first look at all the data in the table and determine the maximum width required by each column. Sum all of these and do some calculations to determine the size font required to fill the entire width of the page (this is minus margins, of course). If it's greater than 10pt, just use 10pt instead. In this case the width of the table will need to be calculated so that it is smaller than the full available width on the page. I'm just doing this to avoid vast amounts of whitespace in my table. 4. The table-column tags will set the column-width attribute equal to "proportional-column-width(x)", where x is the maximum width determined for that column. This should set all the column widths correctly. __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
