[Framers] middle (vertical) alignment in table cell ?

[Monique Semp]

Hello, Framers,

I’m trying to vertically center text in a table cell (in unstructured FrameMaker 2015, on Windows 7). I’m using a table cell for the title text, and putting the table cell inside a text frame that’s identified as the TITLE flow.

I cannot seem to get the text to be precisely vertically centered. It’s *almost* centered, and clearly is not Top, Bottom, or As Is. But *almost* centered is *not* centered. (No, users probably won’t notice. But I notice, and our design person has noticed and asked me to fix it.)

If you’ve run into this before and found a solution, I’d greatly appreciate your help!

Here are details:

* The table has a table tag, “title block”, all indents & spacing set to 0, all cell margins set to 0, and no separators or outside rulings.

* The para tag for the title text, “title”, also has all Indents and Spacing set to 0, the Format is In Column, has its Cell Vertical Alignment set to Middle, and all the Cell Margins set to “From Table Format, Plus: 0.0 pt”.

* For the TITLE flow, the Line Layout has neither the Baseline Synchronization nor the Feather option selected.

* The Row Format has equal settings for the Minimum and Maximum height limits (so that the row is always the same size), it starts Anywhere, and neither the Keep With Next/Previous options are selected.

I’ve checked this lists archives, as well as googled to try to find an answer, and it seems that you simply cannot precisely vertically center a table cell’s text. The online FrameMaker 9 help, http://help.adobe.com/en_US/FrameMaker/9.0/Using/WSd817046a44e105e21e63e3d11ab7f7240c-7fae.html, offers this strange tip: “If you want text to look vertically centered, make the top margin larger than the bottom margin. For example, make the top margin 5 points and the bottom margin 3 points.” This advice is repeated in the Help PDF, “Using Adobe FrameMaker (2015 release)” doc, on page 314.

I tried setting the top margin to 2 points to effect the two point difference between top and bottom, but that had no effect. I tried changing the Line Space, and as expected it moved the 2nd line of text closer/farther from the first (that is, decreased/increased the leading), but did not help with the vertical-alignment problem.

I wondered if I had to simply start over because of the interaction between table formats and their contained paragraph formats. The FrameMaker Help has this somewhat distressing info about the interactions and when a change might take effect: “When you change cell margins or text alignment and later apply a different format to the table, the changes are not overwritten by the new table format’s default settings. Because cell margins and text alignment are part of a paragraph format, they aren’t normally stored as part of the Table Catalog format. However, the paragraph formats of the first title paragraph and the first paragraph in the heading, body, and footing rows of each column are stored. You can customize the alignment of any of these paragraphs and then store the table format in the catalog. Future tables using that table format will have the custom settings as their defaults.” And also, “The vertical alignment that you apply to a cell will persist even when you apply a different table format from the Table Designer.”

So I deleted the “table” (in quotes because it’s only a single cell, but yes, it is a table), and inserted a new table (where I’d already saved the cell margins to be 2.0 points at the top and 0 at the bottom), but the results are as they originally were.

Thanks,
-Monique