[R] odfTable: table width and alignment

[Max Kuhn]

> I am trying to figure out how to control table width and alignment on the
> page for a table generated by odfTable. Based on reading odfWeave
> documentation (including formattingOut.odt), here is how I manipulate the
> styles:
>
st = getStyleDefs()
 # modify the table style
 tab = getStyles()$table
st[[tab]]$align = "center"            # seems to have no effect
st[[tab]]$marginLeft = "2.0 in"     # seems to have no effect
setStyleDefs(st)
>
> My table always ends up fully justified (taking all page width). When I
> check Table Format in the output .odf, Alignment is always "Automatic". When
> doing Column/Optimal Width on the table, the table shrinks but becomes left
> aligned, not centered.

It's hard to tell without an actual file to test with (and what
versions of R and odfWeave, and what platform etc)

Did you read the example files in the examples directory of the
package? There are examples of what you are doing there and they seem
to work (last time I checked at least).

Can you you reproduce those example tables?

> The table style is understood by odfWeave -- here is the output I get after
> sourcing my style definition file:
>
>> getStyles()$table
> [1] "RTable1"
>> getStyleDefs()[[getStyles()$table]]
> $type
> [1] "Table"
>
> $marginLeft
> [1] "2.0 in"
>
> $marginRight
> [1] "0.05in"
>
> $marginTop
> [1] "0.05in"
>
> $marginBottom
> [1] "0.05in"
>
> $align
> [1] "center"
>
> I am not sure why these style options do not seem to have effect on the
> output. My specific questions are:
>
> (1) How do I get table alignment to work?
>
> (2) Is the only way to control table width via setting the margins in the
> $table style? What am I doing wrong in the above style code?

At present, yes.

> (3) What about column width -- is it possible to automatically size columns
> to fit the content, like selecting Column/Optimal Width but programmatically
> via odfWeave?

It is on my (neglected) list of things to do. We could provide an
interface for users to specify the columns widths manually. I've
experimented with figuring it out automatically and it is subject to
the font specifications (obviously) and tricky.

Max