Position a Table

There are floating tables and inline tables:

  • Inline tables are placed on the same layer as the text and are placed in a flow of text that only surrounds the table above and below. Inline tables will always appear between the paragraphs where you placed them.
  • Floating tables are layered over the text, and the position of the table relative to the paragraph is determined by the table anchor. Because of this, the position of the floating table in the document is affected by the vertical and horizontal positioning settings.

Sometimes you need to position a table in a document in a certain way. To do this, you need to use the alignment tools and set the indents between the table and the surrounding text.

In this article, we will discuss what options Aspose.Words provides for positioning.

Specify Inline Table Position

You can set the position of an inline table using the Aspose.Words API and the alignment property. Thus, you can adjust the alignment of the table relative to the document page.

The following code example shows how to set the position of an inline table:

Get Floating Table Alignment

If the table text wrapping is set to Around, you can get the table’s horizontal and vertical alignment using the relativeHorizontalAlignment and relativeVerticalAlignment properties.

With other types of text wrapping, you can get inline table alignment using the alignment property.

The following code example shows how to get the table’s alignment:

Get Floating Table Position

The position of a floating table is determined using the following properties:

The following code example shows how to get the position of a floating table:

Set Floating Table Position

Just like getting, you can set the position of a floating table using the same Aspose.Words API.

It is important to know that alignment and horizontal and vertical distance are combined properties and one can reset the other. For example, setting the RelativeHorizontalAlignment will reset the AbsoluteHorizontalDistance to its default value and vice versa. The same is true for the vertical arrangement.

The following code example shows how to set the position of a floating table:

Get Distance between Table and Surrounding Text

Aspose.Words also provides an opportunity to find out the distances between tables and surrounding texts:

The following code example shows how to get the distance between a table and its surrounding text:

FAQ

  1. Q: How can I change the horizontal alignment of a floating table in Node.js?
    A: Use the relativeHorizontalAlignment property of the Table object. Assign a value from the RelativeHorizontalAlignment enum (e.g., RelativeHorizontalAlignment.Left). Setting this property automatically resets any previously set absoluteHorizontalDistance.

  2. Q: Which property controls the vertical distance of a floating table from its anchor paragraph?
    A: The absoluteVerticalDistance property defines the exact vertical offset (in points) from the anchor. You can set it directly, but note that changing relativeVerticalAlignment will reset this value to its default.

  3. Q: How do I prevent a floating table from overlapping other floating objects?
    A: Set the allowOverlap property to false. This tells Aspose.Words to automatically reposition the table if it would intersect another floating shape.

  4. Q: Can I retrieve the distances between a table and surrounding text?
    A: Yes. Use the distanceTop, distanceBottom, distanceLeft, and distanceRight properties of the Table object. They return the spacing (in points) that the table maintains on each side.

  5. Q: What is the difference between horizontalAnchor and relativeHorizontalAlignment?
    A: horizontalAnchor specifies the reference point (e.g., page, margin, column) used for positioning the table. relativeHorizontalAlignment defines how the table aligns relative to that anchor (left, center, right). Both must be set appropriately to achieve the desired placement.

Merge Table Cells Work with Text in a Table