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Re: Looking at the XML under the hood of Word ... how toidenti

• From: Shlomi Fish <shlomif@shlomifish.org>
• To: xml-dev@lists.xml.org
• Date: Mon, 1 May 2023 21:38:32 +0300

Hi Roger,

On Mon, 1 May 2023 17:04:33 +0000
Roger L Costello <costello@mitre.org> wrote:

> Hi Folks,
> 
> When I create a table in Word I want to explicitly indicate that "this cell
> is a column header". See screenshot at bottom of this message.
> 
> You probably know that under-the-hood of Word is XML. I will be writing
> software to process the XML, so I need something in the XML which indicates
> that a cell is a column header. Bold-facing the first row of a table is a
> good visual cue to a human reader that the items in the row are column
> headers, but bold-facing is of no help to software.
> 
> I did some Googling and found this suggestion for indicating a column header:
> highlight the first row, right-mouse click, select Table Properties, click on
> the Row

that sounds like an xy-problem: https://xyproblem.info/ .

also see
https://www.shlomifish.org/philosophy/computers/web/choice-of-docs-formats/#word-processors
.

> tab, select "Repeat as header row at the top of each page" and
> unselect "Allow row to break across pages".
> 
> Okay, I did that and then examined the XML that was generated. See below for
> the XML of the first row of the table. As far as I can tell, the
> <w:tblHeader/> element is used to indicate "This row contains the column
> headers". Do you agree? Does Word provide any other way to identify column
> headers? /Roger
> 
> <w:tr ...>
>     <w:trPr>
>         <w:cantSplit/>
>         <w:tblHeader/>
>     </w:trPr>
>     <w:tc>
>         <w:tcPr>
>             <w:tcW w:w="0" w:type="auto"/>
>         </w:tcPr>
>         <w:p ...>
>             <w:pPr>
>                 <w:rPr>
>                     <w:b/>
>                     <w:bCs/>
>                 </w:rPr>
>             </w:pPr>
>             <w:proofErr w:type="spellStart"/>
>             <w:r w:rsidRPr="002C7789">
>                 <w:rPr>
>                     <w:b/>
>                     <w:bCs/>
>                 </w:rPr>
>                 <w:t>Vehicle_Type</w:t>
>             </w:r>
>             <w:proofErr w:type="spellEnd"/>
>         </w:p>
>     </w:tc>
>     <w:tc>
>         <w:tcPr>
>             <w:tcW w:w="0" w:type="auto"/>
>         </w:tcPr>
>         <w:p ...>
>             <w:pPr>
>                 <w:rPr>
>                     <w:b/>
>                     <w:bCs/>
>                 </w:rPr>
>             </w:pPr>
>             <w:r w:rsidRPr="002C7789">
>                 <w:rPr>
>                     <w:b/>
>                     <w:bCs/>
>                 </w:rPr>
>                 <w:t>Sensitivity</w:t>
>             </w:r>
>         </w:p>
>     </w:tc>
> </w:tr>
> 
> 
> [cid:image001.png@01D97C2B.6660D400]
> 



-- 

Shlomi Fish       https://www.shlomifish.org/
Star Trek: “We, the Living Dead” - https://shlom.in/st-wtld

Unix was not designed to stop you from doing stupid things, because that would
also stop you from doing clever things.
    — Doug Gwyn ( https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Unix )

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• References:
  • Looking at the XML under the hood of Word ... how to identify columnheaders?
    • From: Roger L Costello <costello@mitre.org>