DocBook 5: The Definitive Guide

Name

informaltable — An HTML table without a title

Synopsis

informaltable (db.html.informaltable) ::= (info? ^{db.titleforbidden.info}, (col* | colgroup*), thead? ^{db.html.thead}, tfoot? ^{db.html.tfoot}, (tbody ^{db.html.tbody}+ | tr+))

Attribute synopsis

Attributes:

• summary

• width (enumeration) = xsd:integer | xsd:string (Pattern: “[0–9]+%”)

• border (nonNegativeInteger)

• frame (enumeration) = “void” | “above” | “below” | “hsides” | “lhs” | “rhs” | “vsides” | “box” | “border”

• rules (enumeration) = “none” | “groups” | “rows” | “cols” | “all”

• cellspacing (enumeration) = xsd:integer | xsd:string (Pattern: “[0–9]+%”)

• cellpadding (enumeration) = xsd:integer | xsd:string (Pattern: “[0–9]+%”)

Description

This informaltable element identifies an informal HTML table (one without a caption). DocBook allows either CALS or HTML tables, both of which describe tables geometrically using rows, columns, and cells.

HTML tables may include column headers and footers. To identify a row header, use a th in the row.

Why aren’t HTML tables in the HTML namespace?

HTML tables were introduced in DocBook V4.3, which was not in a namespace and was defined normatively with a DTD. DTDs do not support namespaces very well. The Technical Committee decided to simply add the HTML element names to DocBook. This solution simplified specification, avoided issues of namespace support in DTDs, and solved the most compelling use case: cut-and-paste of simple, text-only HTML tables into DocBook.

Strictly speaking, it would be incorrect to put these ...