At 2005-09-15 17:18 -0700, Dan Vint wrote:
I did a search on balanced and unbalanced columns in the spec and
didn't find anything. Also looked into widows and orphans with no help.
Is there a way in XSL to request a multi column layout to balance
the length of columns when it doesn't fill a page?
:{)} This is part of the first exercise in my XSL-FO training, Dan
... too bad you haven't yet had the chance to take it.
Add a zero-sized spanned block at the end of your flow for the page
sequence ... this will push up the columns into their
span-reference-area in order to open the new span-reference-area for
the empty block, thus accomplishing your required balancing. The
empty block will not render and all you have is the balanced columns.
Note, though, the balancing isn't necessarily precise as the
formatter still has to accommodate widows and orphans in the
"pushed-up" column content. In my exercise's data it happens that
the left column is three lines longer than the right in order to
satisfy the widow/orphan counts. But, the lines are all at the top
of the two-column page, not just down the left.
I hope this helps.
. . . . . . . . Ken
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