How to center title text and table across two columns

Hello,

I want to be able to center a table and its title across a two column page. The pages where I want to do this contain text in both columns or text in the left column and graphics in the right. On the same pages as the text and graphics, I'd like to center, across both columns, a table with a title. What is the best way to do this?

If I insert the table in the left column, I can size it to fit over both columns but I can't type directly into the cells that cover the right column (I can type in the cells covering the right column if I Tab to them but it's tedious and doesn't seem right). With the table's title, I've tried using the Across All Columns paragraph setting, but the text stays in the column the paragraph marker is in.

We are using Frame 8 on Windows XP Professional. The Master pages are Right and Left pages that are set up with two columns, both tagged as A with the Autoconnect feature on so that the text flows from the bottom of the left column to the top of the right.

Please let me know what you think.

Thanks,

Tim

What I do is insert the table in an empty paragraph that spans both columns. If you set the font and line-height small enough the blank line is almost invisible.

But now I read your message more closely, I see you have an unorthodox way of making two-column pages, and I suspect my suggestion won’t work. Is there a reason for this approach? Rather than defining a single frame with two columns on each page?

I do not know why our approach was used, I inherited the templates and am working to clean everything up. I will try to set up the single frame with two columns as you suggest. Is it easy to tell me how you do it?

Thanks.

Select the frame, Graphics > Object Properties, and change the number of
columns to 2.

--
Kenneth Benson
Pegasus Type, Inc.
www.pegtype.com

Thanks, I set it up and it provides equal sized columns. Is there a way to specify that one column is smaller than the other? We've had the column we use for text a little smaller than the one for graphics.

Yes, equal-sized columns. No, they're always equal. And that answers
David's question: you're using two frames because you want unequal columns.

Frame's paragraph-level column controls only work on columns made by
dividing a single frame into two or more columns. So you're back to
square one: you need two frames because your columns are unequal; you
need one frame so you can span columns.

Another possibility is that you might set up your document with a
sidehead column, but I hesitate to recommend this because I still can't
quite envision what your layout looks like. Any chance you can post a
PDF somewhere?

--
Kenneth Benson
Pegasus Type, Inc.
www.pegtype.com

Hi, Tim:

You can fake uneven columns in a multi-column text frame by creating an invisible/non-printing line or rectangle that's set to Graphics > Runaround Properties > Runaround Bounding Box, positioning it in the column of the two-same-width=columns frame that you want to narrow, and grouping it with the main text frame on the master page. You can set the amount of narrowing that the line creates, by using Gap in the Object Properties dialog box, or for the rectangle, by adjusting its width.

HTH

Regards,

Peter Gold
KnowHow ProServices