Edit Table Format -- Make row height fixed.

[Wilx]

Greetings:

I'm running Affinity Publisher 2.0.0 under macOS 12.6.1 on a Mac mini with an Apple M1 chip.  I've searched the forum for this topic and was unable to find it.  I've reviewed "creating custom tables" in the online manual (https://affinity.help/publisher/en-US.lproj/index.html?page=pages/Panels/tableFormatsPanel.html?title=Table Formats panel) and was unable to find an answer to this question.

How do I configure a table format in the "Edit Table Format" dialogue, so that table rows have a fixed height?

Here's a screen shot of the problem (ignore the blue frame border on the left table).  As you'll note, these two tables have the same number of rows and columns, but the rows have differing heights.  I'll have many tables in my publication and I want them to have a uniform appearance.  Varying row heights will create a non-uniform appearance.

Here's a screen shot of my Edit Table Format dialogue for these two tables.

If it is possible to fix the row height, I assume it must be done under the "Vertical Position" section of the above dialogue.

Under Vertical Position, there are three variables:  Alignment, Initial advance, and Minimum.  Only Alignment is documented in the online manual (referenced above), and its purpose is self-evident.

"Initial advance" has the following options in the pull-down: Default, Leading, Pointsize, Ascent, Cap Height, X Height, and Fixed.  Is this, maybe, the white space between the top of the cell and the top of the text in the cell?

You'll also note the tooltip, when hovering over "Minimum" says "Max Paragraph Space."  So is this the minimum height of the cell, the maximum height of the cell, or something else?

I assume that if it is possible to fix the row height in a table format, then it must be done by manipulating these three variables.  Any guidance from the community would be appreciated.  Thank you in advance.

Best,

Mark

 

 

 

[MikeTO]

Hi Mark, that tooltip is definitely wrong and is a bug. The same field in the Table Panel has the correct tooltip.

But as far as I know there is no way to set a fixed row height. You can select the table and then use Table Panel > Cell > Height to set a height for every row, but if the text in any cell of a row is larger than that height it will resize automatically to contain it. The same is true if the text wraps to the same line.

So the best advice I can offer is to set your row height this way but ensure that every cell can contain its contents.

Vertical Position doesn't have anything to do with row height except that it specifies the vertical position of text in the cell and depending on what values you select will make the cell contents need more vertical space and thus potentially increase the row height.

BTW you can format the text in cells with the No Break option in character formatting to prevent wrapping to a new line but unlike a spreadsheet like Excel, if there's text in the cell to its right the text will overlap instead of being cut off.

Cheers

[Wilx]

Thanks @MikeTO.  I was hoping I could make the row heights static in the template.  I guess that's not to be.  I followed your suggestion.  I create the table (from the template), enter my data, then manually set the heights of the rows.  It's a workable solution for now.

Best,

Mark