Possible to create a text-table?

[arnthom]

Hi Ralf!

I try to create a multipage pdf with lots of data, that go into a table.
There ist no need to draw lines, just display the words and numbers in a defined structure.

• I tried to use column layout, but that goes from column1 to colums2 when reaching the end of the page.
• I tried indentation, but that does not work as intended.

Is it possible to use a few indentations in only one line?
Does indentation work, when there is (for this cell of the table) no text to be displayed? I find, that when there is just column 4 used, the indentation for cell 2 and 3 seems to have no effect.

Here is a piece of code of my project (with enumerations of the data columns, strings s1 to s4 have no line feed "\n"):

			Enumeration e1 = ...
			Enumeration e2 = ...
			Enumeration e3 = ...
			Enumeration e4 = ...
			while (e1.hasMoreElements()) {
				String s1 = (String) e1.nextElement();
				String s2 = (String) e2.nextElement();
				String s3 = (String) e3.nextElement();
				String s4 = (String) e4.nextElement();
				
				Paragraph p = new Paragraph();
				p.addMarkup(s1, 12, basefont);
				p.add(new Indent(140, SpaceUnit.pt));
				p.addMarkup(s2, 12, basefont);
				p.add(new Indent(70, SpaceUnit.pt));
				p.addMarkup(s3, 12, basefont);
				p.add(new Indent(50, SpaceUnit.pt));
				p.addMarkup(s4, 12, basefont);
				document.add(p);
			}

How do I get this to work as I want? Any idea, any work in progress towards this direction?

Update:

just adding s1 and s2, works fine. When adding s3, the string s2 ist not visible anymore. When finally adding s4, all strings but s2 are visible and intended as I want. Maybe a bug?

Second update: multiple indents in one line should behave like tabstopps in a word document. Too bad, I cannot use "\t" in the text, \0009 could not be found in the font, whatever I tried.

I would really appreciate any reply, may it be Ralf, may it be a user with similiar problem and perhaps a solution.

Update2:

since I cannot comment (don't know why), I have to answer to Ralfs reply this way:
Thank you for the feedback, Ralf!
As I said, Indent seems have a bug, generally I can use a few indentations in just one line, but some text is missing.

final String[] texts = new String[7];
final Alignment[] aligns = { Alignment.Left, Alignment.Right, Alignment.Right, Alignment.Right, Alignment.Right, Alignment.Right, Alignment.Right, };
final float[] widths = { 140, 30, 140, 70, 70, 20, 20, };

texts[0] = "spalte 1";
texts[1] = "spalte 2";
texts[2] = "spalte 3";
texts[3] = "spalte 4";
texts[4] = "spalte 5";
texts[5] = "spalte 6";
texts[6] = "spalte 7";

switch (...) {
case '1':
texts[2] = "text2";
texts[3] = "";
addZeile(texts, widths, aligns);
...

protected void addZeile(String[] texts, float[] widths, Alignment[] alignments) throws IOException, PdfCException {
if (texts.length != alignments.length
|| texts.length != widths.length) {
throw new PdfCException("falsche Tabellendefinition");
}
pArray = new Paragraph[texts.length];
ColumnLayout col = new ColumnLayout(texts.length + 1, 5);
document.add(col);
for (int i = 0; i < texts.length; i++) {
pArray[i] = getParagraph(alignments[i], widths[i]);
pArray[i].addMarkup(texts[i], 10, myStandardFont);
document.add(pArray[i]);
document.add(ColumnLayout.NEWCOLUMN);
}
doc.add(new VerticalLayout());
}

Now I try the column approach line by line, which seems to work better, but there is a problem with the column width.
I try to set it by paragraph width, but not all columns have the width that I set.
I suspect, the column width is identical for all colums, but the paragraph may write up to its width whether this in the column boundery or not. Am I right?

btw: when adding NEWCOLUMN after the last paragraph of the array, it works as a NEWPAGE element, so I had to remove the last one ...

[ralfstuckert]

Hi,
I'am currently working on tables, but honestly I have to say that I don't have much time to spend on this project. Indent is implemented to work at the begin of a line only, so I don't think this will work.
Sorry
Ralf

[arnthom]

OK, I'll be watching for the update with tables, meanwhile the columnlayout workaround does work well ...