Spanned table rows do not seem to work

[markgif]

I have a DITA table with spanned rows using @morerows like the sample below. The spanned rows are not respected in the PDF (attached). In searching through the CSS code I can't find "morerows" so I assume it's not implemented. How can I fix this?

Thanks, Mark

table.pdf

<concept id="table-test" xml:lang="en">
  <title>Table test</title>
  <shortdesc>The following chart is a quick overview. </shortdesc>
  <conbody>
    <table outputclass="type2">
      <tgroup cols="3">
        <colspec colname="1" />
        <colspec colname="2" />
        <colspec colname="3" />
        <thead>
          <row>
            <entry colname="1" nameend="1" namest="1">First Column</entry>
            <entry>Second Column</entry>
            <entry>Third Column</entry>
          </row>
        </thead>
        <tbody>
          <row>
            <entry morerows="1">You need other help </entry>
            <entry>Hospital stay </entry>
            <entry>Text</entry>
          </row>
          <row>
            <entry>Doctor or surgeon care </entry>
            <entry>Text</entry>
          </row>
        </tbody>
      </tgroup>
    </table>
  </conbody>
</concept>

[grefel]

We had the same issue and could not find a solution with CSS. We changed the output-data via a custom XSLT. Basically <entry> -> <td>. This breaks the merged Dita-Strucure but works for us with Prince XML. But maybe there is a better solution out there. The template we're using:

<xsl:template match="entry">
    <td xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
        <xsl:copy-of select="@*"/>
        <xsl:if test="@morerows">
              <xsl:attribute name="rowspan" select="number(@morerows) + 1"></xsl:attribute>  
        </xsl:if>
        <xsl:if test="@namest and @nameend">
            <xsl:variable name="namest" select="@namest"/>
            <xsl:variable name="nameend" select="@nameend"/>
            <xsl:variable name="namestPos" select="number(parent::*/parent::*/parent::*/colspec[@colname=$namest]/@colnum)"/>
            <xsl:variable name="nameendPos" select="number(parent::*/parent::*/parent::*/colspec[@colname=$nameend]/@colnum)"/>
            <xsl:attribute name="colspan" select="$nameendPos - $namestPos + 1"/>  
        </xsl:if>
        <xsl:apply-templates/>
    </td>
</xsl:template>

[markgif]

Thanks very much. That might work for me.

What PDF processor are you using? I'm using Antenna House and I'm thinking about asking them to implement awareness of DITA/CALS @morerows etc. so I don't have to do this.

[grefel]

Sorry missed the processor out: I use Prince XML.

[dan-caprioara]

Indeed, this is a CSS limitation. There is no way to specify the column and row span of the table cells. I will integrate the fix proposed by grefel. (but I have to test it also with AntennaHouse)

[dan-caprioara]

I just tested with Prince and Antenna House and both have non-standard CSS extensions for imposing colspan and rowspan to table cells:

http://www.princexml.com/doc/properties/table-column-span/

    *[class~="topic/entry"][colspan] {
       table-column-span:attr(colspan);
    }
    *[class~="topic/entry"][rowspan] {
       table-row-span:attr(rowspan);
    }

The above XSLT template is still needed, but works fine without converting the CALS 'entry' to HTML 'td'.