Understanding how table properties affect column widths

This tutorial guides you through creating a table in a template and selecting property values in various combinations to achieve consistent column widths in the output.

Learning objectives

To create a template in the Document Studio application.
To add elements to a template.
To create a variable and assign it to an element.
To preview the output as you design a template.

To specify table properties in supported combinations:

Table 1. Supported table property combinations
Table property combinations	table autofit	resize to fit contents	fixed cell width in column
Combination 1 (Lesson 2)	no value is entered	`true`	`true`
Combination 2 (Lesson 3)	no value is entered	`false`	`true`
Combination 3 (Lesson 4)	no value is entered	`false`	`false`
Combination 4 (Lesson 5)	`autofit to contents`	`true`	`true`
Combination 5 (Lesson 6)	`autofit to window`	`true`	`true`

Time required

This tutorial takes approximately 30 minutes to complete.

Introduction
The first lesson helps you to create a template that includes a heading and a table. The remaining lessons help you to change the table properties in the template into five supported scenarios and to generate the output for each one.
Lesson 1: Create a base template
Start by creating a base template in Document Studio and adding a table element.
Lesson 2: Cell widths defined by the user are considered (defaults)
In this lesson, you generate a table with the default properties and with cell widths specified. The cell widths that are entered are considered, but might not be strictly adhered to when the output is generated.
Lesson 3: Cell widths defined by the user are used
In this lesson, you generate a table with cells that do not resize based on their content. The cell widths that are entered by the user are strictly adhered to when the output is generated.
Lesson 4: Cell widths in the same column can vary
In this lesson, you generate a table with cells that are in the same column and that have different widths.
Lesson 5: Cell widths resize based on content
In this lesson, you generate a table with cells resize based on their content.
Lesson 6: Cell widths resize to fit the page
In this lesson, you generate a table with cells that resize to fit the output document-style report.
Summary
You have created templates with tables and previewed their output.