rtsi.com/2014.01.www.rtsi.com.tar/www.rtsi.com/OS9/OSK/APPS/lout2.lzh/LOUT2/DOC/TR.TAB/s1

Text File | 1994-01-25 | 3KB | 64 lines

@Section
   @Title { Introduction }
@Begin
@PP
The Tab table formatting package is designed to simplify the production
of tables in documents produced with the Lout document formatting system
[{@Ref kingston92}].  Tab aligns entries in columns, draws boxes and
rules, and so on.  To use Tab, either place @Code "-itab" on the Unix
@FootNote { Unix is a trademark of "AT&T" Bell Laboratories. }
command line, or @Code "@SysInclude { tab }" in the setup file.
@PP
To begin with a very simple example, the table
@CD
@Tab
    @Fmta { @Col A  !  @Col B  !  @Col C }
{
    @Rowa A { Austen } B { Chaucer } C { Donne }
    @Rowa A { Balzac } B { Darwin } C { Goethe }
    @Rowa A { Byron } B { Dickens } C { Homer }
}
is the result of the following Lout input:
@ID @Code {
"@Tab"
"    @Fmta { @Col A  !  @Col B  !  @Col C }"
"{"
"    @Rowa A { Austen } B { Chaucer } C { Donne }"
"    @Rowa A { Balzac } B { Darwin } C { Goethe }"
"    @Rowa A { Byron } B { Dickens } C { Homer }"
"}"
}
Immediately after the @Code "@Tab" symbol, which introduces the table,
comes a @I { format option } & , {@Code "@Fmta"}, describing the format
of each row.  It says that each row contains three columns:
{@Code "@Col A"}, {@Code "@Col B"}, and {@Code "@Col C"}.  The format
option may have up to 26 columns, with names chosen freely
from the upper-&-case letters from @Code A to {@Code Z}.  The symbol
@Code "!" separates each pair of columns.
@PP
After the format option comes the body of the table, enclosed in
braces.  It consists entirely of a sequence of rows, each introduced by
the @Code "@Rowa" symbol and containing one entry for each column of the
format option, as shown (the row may occupy any number of lines of the
input file).  The entries may be arbitrary Lout objects, such as words,
paragraphs, equations, figures, and so on without restriction.  An entry
may be omitted altogether if it is empty.  Lout will choose suitable widths
for the columns, and break paragraphs in the entries to the right widths.
@PP
Tab neither knows nor cares what happens to the table it produces; it
could appear at any point in the document, even within a paragraph of
text.  Most commonly, though, tables are displayed using the
@Code "@IndentedDisplay" and @Code "@CentredDisplay" symbols from the
DocumentLayout package [{@Ref kingston92begin}]:
@ID @Code "@CentredDisplay @Tab ..."
or else they go into the @Code "@Table" symbol:
@ID @Code {
"@Table"
"    @Caption { ... }"
"@Tab"
"{ ..."
"}"
}
which centres them at the top of the following page and adds a caption.
@End @Section