[reportlab-users] snaking columns?

[Robin Becker]

Paul McNett wrote:
> mike wrote:
>> hello  -
>>
>>
>> is it possible to generate pdf files that have snaking columns of data 
>> that fill one printed page at a time?
......
> The Dabo report writer can handle this... barely. Dabo is a 3-tier 
> database application framework, and the report writer/designer wraps 
> Reportlab and provides classic "banded" database report features. You 
> just specify the number of columns (default is 1) and it simply divides 
> the available width by that to come up with each column's width. Future 
> improvements will include specifying variable column widths, and running 
> across and then down. IOW:
> 
> item 1             item 2                 item 3
> item 4... etc.
> 
> See our screencasts at: http://dabodev.com/documentation
> 
Fixed widths are relatively easy since the column split (at least) can 
be done up front, the case of variable width/row height seems fairly 
hard. The snaking tables case is non-obvious even when columns are fixed 
width, but row heights vary since the row split is determined by 
splitting two (or more) tables simultaneously so it might be preferable 
to split row-wise first. On top people want spans and repeated 
columns/rows etc etc.
-- 
Robin Becker