Table, groups or text flow?

Once the shape of the data is settled (see Data preparation), the central presentation decision follows: which way does the content get onto the page? The Publisher knows three basic forms, and most layout problems arise from starting with the wrong one.

Table

The table arranges content in rows and columns: all records align to the same columns, breaking across pages happens automatically and row by row, head and foot repeat. The cells are rectangular boxes that never break internally.

Typical applications: article lists, price lists, technical data tables; everything where many uniform records sit below each other. Details in the manual chapter Tables.

Groups and absolute positioning

A group is a virtual area that is first assembled invisibly. Afterwards it can be measured with sd:group-height() and sd:group-width() to decide where (and whether) it goes onto the page: the pattern “measure first, then place”. Together with absolute positioning (fixed coordinates or grid positions at <PlaceObject>) this is the way for pages whose design is fixed and into which the content has to fit.

Typical applications: data sheets with a fixed page structure, catalogs built from modules of varying height where each module is checked against the remaining space before it is placed.

Text flow

Running text belongs neither in a table nor in a group but in <Output>/<Text>: paragraphs flow across pages and placement areas, breaking happens at line boundaries, and images can be wrapped around. The introduction is in the section Placing objects.

Typical applications: longer descriptions, editorial parts, everything paragraph-shaped.

Guiding questions

• Do contents have to align to columns across records? Then table; with groups you only get column alignment by tedious manual work.
• Is the design fixed and every position predetermined? Then groups and absolute positioning; a table would fight against the design.
• Does something have to be measured before placing (“does the next module still fit on this page?”)? Then groups.
• Does the content flow as text across pages or should it wrap around images? Then <Output>/<Text>.
• Is the list long and are the rows uniform? Then the table with automatic breaking, see the recipe.

The forms are not mutually exclusive, quite the opposite: table cells can contain images and paragraphs, groups often contain tables (to measure a table before placing it), and a text flow can carry tables between its paragraphs. The decision concerns the outermost form of each content block, not the whole document.

Decision table