table column width
Asked by none:

How can I control the width of columns in 4.2? Confluence arbitrarily delegates enough space to some columns, then just runs out of room at the end and squeezes everything after.


Answers:
author: Selcuk Savas
body: Hi,

I use HTML macro to create my own table and modify it as necessary.

Alternatively you can use wiki markup as seen below:

{section:border=true}  
{column:width=30%}  
Text for this column goes here. This is the smaller column with a width of only 30%.  
{column}  
{column:width=70%}  
Text for this column goes here. This is the larger column with a width of 70%.  
{column}  
{section}

Cheers,

Selcuk

comments: author: Susan Modlin
body: Can you have multiple rows in a table that uses this markup?


author: Mick Davidson
body: I agree about Confluence being able to handle column widths better, or give us an easy way of doing so ourselves.

We have 100s of existing tables whose columns vary wildly, even on the same page.

Asking users to do even more work by using wiki markup just to get the columns right isn't an option - unless it's quick and easy.

For example, you can use a macro to set up a, say, a five column table and specify the widths for each in percentages. Then all you have to do is save the macro and you're done.

If you then find you need to adjust them, you just open the macro again and edit the settings.

Of course this wouldn't work on existing tables, and it would be very helpful to do so. Obviously this is all very simple to do and I'm sure Atlassian will knock something up over the weekend. :)

Cheers.


author: MartinB
body: I agree with anonymous here, it's no use to have a cool wysiwyg table editor in confluence, but then remove basic functions like column width.

Also, I can not use the table plus, because my users are not hackers.


author: Susan Modlin
body: +1 for me, too. We don't have that many tables, but we desperately need to format the ones we have to control column width.


author: Bastian Berkner
body: I totally agree with Martin and Mick. We also have hundreds of tables whose columns vary widly and can't easily be read. Especially (formally) structured data with ten or more tables on the same page.


author: Mark
body: Sam,

Would you know how to do the opposite?

Putting in the string sets a minimum width the column will have, but I'm trying to figure out how to do the opposite. I want to limit the column width to a maximum. For example, I want to set column that is never wider than 20 characters wide. With a maximum of 20 in place, no matter how much text I add in any cell of that column that maximum will make sure it will never get any wider. This is the same functionality that Excel has. No data in a cell can affect the column width unless you specifically set it to.

comments: author: Sam Campbell
body: I'm afraid I wasn't able to find a solution to setting a width parameter - maximum or minimum - besides my cheat. I was using the Table Plus macro and for some reason it didn't accept any of my inputs for column width or table width, though I was able to set column colors, so at least I know the macro accepts CSS.


author: Sam Campbell
body: Here's a cheat solution: the width of the column will be as wide as the longest uninterrupted string of characters, so if you put a string of "-----" in the column header, it will auto-set the width of the column to the width of that string of dashes.


author: Susan Modlin
body: I found it too and was going to get back to comment, but you beat me to it, Mark. The good news is you can try before you buy.


author: Mark
body: I thought the same thing at first. The link in that old page I posted pointed to a deprecated Atlassian page. It was just moved to here. <https://bobswift.atlassian.net/wiki/display/TBL/Table+Plus+Macro>

On a side note, I was hoping the solution was free, but it requires pay per user fee. That sucks, but at least I can bug our finance people for a solution.


author: Susan Modlin
body: Mark, the tableplus macro doesn't appear to be available any more. Anyone else have suggestions?


author: Mark
body: Hi all....old topic I know, but I've been searching for the answer for a while and finally found a very clear explanation and examples on how to lock columns and set them to a specific pixel width. It's combersome compared to a native WYSIWYG directly from Atlassian would be, but the use of the table-plus macro is still a fix.

***How do I customise table column widths?** [A standard](https://wiki.mq.edu.au/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=65963269)[Confluence](http://www.atlassian.com/software/confluence)[wiki table has auto adjusting column widths, i.e. the more text you have in a cell, the wider the column will get. But what if you want the table to fill the entire available width? Or you want all the columns to be the same width?
https://wiki.mq.edu.au/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=65963269](https://wiki.mq.edu.au/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=65963269)*


author: Bob Swift (personal)
body: See [How to control table column width](https://bobswift.atlassian.net/wiki/display/TBL/How+to+control+table+column+width)

comments: author: none
body: thanks, but this kinda bites. I don't want to use a macro for a simple table, and think confluence should handle this better

since wiki markup was removed, the tables look terrible (first column is squeezed, no matter how much text is in it)

also since wiki markup was removed, I am disinclined to insert markup that I can't see, and let confluence guess for me, that sounds like ... well, microsoft

thanks for the tips, appreciate the help even tho I don't like the answers !