Hi I have a document that flows across multiple pages, each of which contains seven columns. The columns contain tables whose cells are keep-together blocks of data. The exact page on which any given cell falls isn't known until the typeset completes.
I need to reserve blocks of space on the pages where the user tells my app to. For example, I might need to reserve a hole on page 3 that is three columns wide and a 1/2 page high with a top-left origin. The user generally determines where they want these holes using processes outside the knowledge of the application, and the location requirements of these holes can change between runs. I'm really struggling to figure out how to reserve these holes. They're defined in terms of a page number, origin, and (x,y) dimension, not relative to the flowed content, so I can't just insert a spacer in the flowed content. Fop doesn't support floats, so I can't use floats to do the job even if I could figure out exactly how to do so. The holes are rectangular, but effectively create non-rectangular page flows, meaning I can't just dynamically generate a page master series with different dimensions for each page depending on hole position requirements. Ideas? What I want is basically non-rectangular page masters like these: ----- --------- ----- ---------- | | | | ---| | | | | ----| | | | | | |--| | | | ----| | | | | |--| | | | | | | | | | |-------| |---| |------| |--------| where each page in a fo:page-sequence-master may be a different shape. It's ... frustrating. -- Craig Ringer
