Re: [Groff] tables side-by-side

[Ted Harding]

On 26-Oct-2013 16:07:47 James K. Lowden wrote:
> I'm confused about how best to lay out tables side by side.
> I'm using the ms macro set.  The main text stretches across
> the page (one column), but I want the tables adjacent so that
> they can be more easily compared.  
> 
> My basic approach is
> 
> .mk
> .TS
>  ... table 1 ...
> .TE
> .rt
> .DS 3i
> .TS
>  ... table 2 ...
> .TE
> 
> If the table is too long for the current page, and lands on
> the next one, that doesn't work well at all, so I have
> 
> .KS
> .mk
> .TS
>  ... table 1 ...
> .TE
> .KE
> .rt
> .DS 3i
> .TS
>  ... table 2 ...
> .TE
> 
> In both cases, though, the second table isn't quite lined up
> with the fisrt. I use .sp to move it down, sometimes by 5p,
> sometimes by 5 lines, depending on whether or not a keep was
> needed.  
> 
> I'm obviously doing something wrong, because 1) the second table
> doesn' line up, and 2) the way it doesn't line up varies, and
> 3) the keep behavior varies according to where the table falls.  
> 
> What's the right way, please?  
> 
> --jkl

Without having yet looked into the problem you describe, I would
suggest that a work-round could be to combine the columns of the
two tables into a single table. This may involve a bit of intricacy
in composing the table, but it would certainly solve both of the
problems you describe:

A) The lines of the two [sub-]tables would always be exactly lined
   up horizontally;
B) There would be no problem if the table[s] were too long for a
   single page, since the combined table, being a single table,
   would continue faultlessly onto the next page.

Small example:



.LP
.TS
centre tab(#);
|c s s| c |c s s|.
_##_
Table 1#\h'1i'#Table 2
_##_
.T&
|l n n| c |l n n|.
Date#Min#Max##Date#Min#Max
20/09/2013#5.2#12.6##26/09/2013#6.7#14.5
21/09/2013#4.3#11.5##27/09/2013#5.8#14.0
22/09/2013#2.7#10.1##28/09/2013#5.5#13.7
23/09/2013#2.5# 9.7##29/09/2013#5.2#13.5
24/09/2013#3.4#11.6##30/09/2013#5.9#114.1
24/09/2013#4.5#12.7##\01/10/2013#6.5#15.6
25/09/2013#5.1#13.2##\02/10/2013#7.2#16.5
.T&
|c s s|c|c s s|.
_##_
.TE



The result (from my machine) is attached as PDF: twotablesinone.pdf

Hoping this helps! Any comments welcome!
Ted.


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E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <address@hidden>
Date: 26-Oct-2013  Time: 18:56:08
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twotablesinone.pdf
Description: twotablesinone.pdf