Getting Productive with XMLMind
Pages: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

Like figures (Figures and Screen Shots), equations, and examples, DocBook tables come in two varieties: normal and informal. The normal, formal table has a caption with a table number, and so works very well with cross-references (also explained below). If you just need a little inline, throwaway table, you can use informaltable. When you are working with DocBook documents (which is what we're writing about), always use the top two sections, rather than the HTML tables which make up the second half of the drop-down menu.

Within each type of table, the four choices in the menu set up different initial structures. Your table can have just body cells, or it can have a row or column (or both) designated as header cells. You can set up this structure by hand; later on, but having options that create it in one step is definitely convenient. Our tables usually have header rows, which is why we usually choose table(head_row).

To add a column: DocBook -> Column -> Insert After (or

To add a row: DocBook -> Row -> Insert After (or Before)

Be sure to add an id to the table (unless you're creating an informal one). You might end up with anchors on interesting rows of the table as well, but cross references (see Cross References) to the table itself need to go to the id associated with the top level table element, which will allow the cross reference mechanism to pull out the table's label or caption as desired by the cross-reference creator. Here's an easy way to do it.

Make sure the table element itself is selected. If you've just created the table, it will be. Otherwise, it's probably easiest to click the table element in the Node Path bar (bullet 1 in Figure 1). You can always double-check by glancing there and at the tree view, if you have it showing. With the table element selected, type in a unique value for its id attribute in the Attributes tool on the right.

In this case, we're assigning a value of tab-example to the table's id attribute. We prefix the id with tab-, but you may prefer another convention. Establishing a convention for naming elements that may be the target of cross-references later on (see Cross References) is a very good idea though. We find using a prefix based on the element's type like this definitely makes it easier to dig through the drop-down list of available IDs in the Attribute tool when creating xref elements to our tables/figures/examples...

One last annoyance: the default entry/#text elements that come inside a table cell are only good for the most rudimentary content. If you simply have several columns of plain, wrappable text, you're fine. If you have any special needs (such as preformatted text or a list) you'll need to tweak the defaults.

One of the quickest ways to end up with what you really want is to click on the #text portion of the path (Bullet 1 above) and then use the Convert button (Bullet 2) to exchange it for something more useful. For example, in the table below, the command-line options are presented in a literallayout element allowing us to add internal line breaks for readability. But you are free to use other elements like the familiar para element (to which you can append a list, for example) or more specialized elements like citation or errortext.