[xsl] Understanding Page Region Boundaries and Margins

["W. Eliot Kimber" <eliot at isogen dot com>]

I'm trying to set up an "offset" page layout where most of the text is
formatted indented 72 points in from the left page margin (creating an
"offset column" 72pts wide) but some text (i.e., the chapter titles)
starts at the page boundary. I've set the margin-left of the region-body
for my page master to 72pt. This gives me an offset column. So far so
good.

For my chapter titles (seen earlier), I use list markup. To pull the big
number into the offset column I just do -72 pt as the margin-left value
on the list block and it works a treat.

However, for another construct, I use a two-column table with the first
column 72pts wide to create a side head. Unfortunately, if I set the
margin-left value to -72 on the table, it is pulled 72 points left of
the *page* margin, not the region margin. But if I set the margin-left
value to "0", it starts at the region boundary (that is, 72pts right of
the page boundary).

Am I missing something about tables and regions or is this a possible
bug in XML Formatter? I'm still not sure I fully understand how regions
and margins work, so it's highly likely I'm just doing something wrong
but my expectation was that if it worked for lists it should work the
same way for tables.

Thanks,

Eliot
ISOGEN International, LLC

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