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30 Aug 2006 16:05:53 -0700: "Peter T. Daniels"
<grammatim@xxxxxxxxxxx>: in sci.lang:
>> You mean the table does not follow the flow of the text? It is not
>> part of the rest of the text? There is not a certain paragraph of
>> non-table text that always precedes that table, and another such
>> paragraph that always follows the table? That's what you mean by
>> float, I suppose? Otherwise I just don't understand how a situation
>> like what you describe could ever occur.
>
>I have read the above paragraph several times and I cannot tell what
>you mean.
Pity for you.
>Have you never looked at a book? Tables very rarely occur in the middle
>of a page, precisely at the place where it is referred to in the text,
>and for several very good reasons -- such as, not breaking the table
>across a page break; not interrupting the flow of text; looking good.
>
>Tables, like graphics in general, belong at the top, or sometimes at
>the bottom if there are lots of them, of the page.
That seems to be a yes to my question. So you did understand what I
wrote very well.
>Tables are not "part of" the text.
Some are, some are not. Also depends on what you the technical device
'table' for.
>They are extra graphic materials treated like any other illustration.
So treat them as such, put them in a frame, so they can be positioned.
>Tables are not the same as
>displayed matter that's part of a text, such as linguistic examples or
>math equations (and I've even occasionally seen books that group all
>the examples/equations referred to on one double-page spread (one
>"opening") together at the lower left or lower right, so as not to
>interrupt the flow of the text -- they also take up less space, since
>half the extra leading above/below the displayed matter is saved).
That's one possible use of 'tables'. I put them to wider use.
>The *Using Word 2003* manual explains that "frames" have been abandoned
>in favor of some (supposedly) far more flexible way of placing
>graphics, although the "Frame" command still exists. I tried using it
>once to insert a sideways legend under a landscape map, and it turned
>out to be invisible to the Table of Contents tool; so much for frames!
I just gave my table a title, with the "header 2" style (I should
create a separate one for tables of course), and it does appear in the
automatic Table of Contents.
>Yeah, if a table could be created in a frame, that's how it should have
>been positioned.
I can be, and I did.
>> My test example is here: http://rudhar.com/tablflow.doc
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