Specifying Page Layout - Adobe FRAMEMAKER 6.0 Manual

Creating default paragraph formats for new tables
You can use the TblFormat and TblColumn statements to define default paragraph formats for the
columns in new tables. These default formats do not affect tables that are defined within the MIF file; they
only affect tables that the user inserts after the MIF file has been opened in a FrameMaker product. Your
filter or application should provide these defaults only for documents that might be edited later.
For example, the following MIF code assigns a paragraph format named Description to body cells in new
tables that are given the format called Coffee Table:
<TblFormat
<TblTag `Coffee Table'>
<TblColumn
<TblColumnNum 0>
<TblColumnWidth 1.0">
<TblColumnBody
<PgfTag `Description'>
> # end of TblColumnBody
> # end of TblColumn
> # end of TblFormat
Tables inherit properties differently
Tables inherit formatting properties somewhat differently than other document components. A table
without an applied table format does not inherit one from a previously defined table. Instead, it gets a set
of default properties from the MIF interpreter. Thus, if you apply a named format to a table, a following
table will not inherit that format.
Paragraphs in table cells still inherit properties from previously defined paragraph formats. If you give a
table cell a certain paragraph style, all subsequent cells inherit the same property unless it is explicitly reset.
Table cells can inherit paragraph properties from any previously specified paragraph format, including
other tables, paragraphs, or even the Paragraph Format catalog.
Tips
To avoid problems when creating tables:
Give each table a unique ID number.
•
Make sure that each Tbl statement has only one corresponding ATbl statement, and that each ATbl
•
statement has a corresponding Tbl statement.
Make sure that each ATbl statement matches the ID of its corresponding table instance.
•

Specifying page layout

FrameMaker documents have two kinds of pages that determine the position and appearance of text in the
document: body pages and master pages.
ADOBE FRAMEMAKER 6.0 41
Using MIF Statements