> -----Original Message-----
> From: Roberta Granata [mailto:robgranata@xxxxxxxxxxx]
>

Hi,

> i write a tool to convert a xml document in PDF using
> fo.
>
> The problem is that when a use a 'table' in the xsl
> file , it forces me to indicate how many columns i
> need to use and the width.
>

Strictly speaking, that is not true. The XSL-FO spec leaves room for
something as 'auto table-layout'. The real problem is that it's not exactly
a cake-walk to implement (--and Apache FOP, for instance, doesn't)

In any case, to achieve the result you describe:

Say your table has two columns, then the cell containing the Chapter names
should have number-columns-spanned="2"

Example code (XSLT)

<xsl:template match="ChapterHead">
  <fo:table-row>
    <fo:table-cell number-columns-spanned="2">
      <!-- content -->
    </fo:table-cell>
  </fo:table-row>
</xsl:template>

<xsl:template match="ChapterLine">
  <fo:table-row>
    <fo:table-cell>
      <!-- content -->
    </fo:table-cell>
    <fo:table-cell>
      <!-- content -->
    </fo:table-cell>
  </fo:table-row>
</xsl:template>


Hope this helps!

Cheers,

Andreas