Working with Tables

DITA provides tables for many situations. Learn how to make them look the way you want.

DITA-FMx provides a number of methods for controlling the appearance of tables. You can’t just apply ad-hoc formatting to a table and expect it to “stick”, but with a little planning and setup, you should be able to achieve most of the formatting that you want.

General table formatting is accomplished by assigning a FrameMaker table format. Custom ruling and shading can also be achieved by setting up the template’s reference page with representative examples of the custom formatting. By default, tables are rendered to fill the full width of the text column, but can be adjusted. Rotated table cells will round-trip without any special effort. If you make use of specialized elements based on the simpletable element, you’ll need to provide information about those structures in order for them to operate properly.