PDFpro Working With Tables

Back again. I've been diving unorthodoxially deep into tables and PDFpro Extended. Without creating the HTML from scratch these can be particularly troublesome. float:left doesn't always go left. align:left will send it over, but keep it down. I don't have a straightforward for this. It just requires some experimenting, but here are some trial and errors I've been through and how to overcome them.

1. When possible, place tables on the left to begin with. Trying to get them to align to the right of text and get them to stay up top while "floating" is quite the adventure. Text is much more forgiving to toss (or span) to the right.

2. Using padding - but not to the table its self. Instead, to the elements surrounding it to keep the tables at bay where you want them. Padding is generally in the <style> up top, but can also be added to a style element individually. I say this because the way PDFpro handles tables is pretty slick. It will resize them by expanding and shrinking automagically in contract to the longest or largest single text without becomeing unreadable or running off the page. So manipulating other elements is the best bet while letting PDFpro do the heavy lifting with the table. Here's an example of a single Label manipulated to push the table down.
<h1 style="some: cool; stuff: here; padding: 0px 0px 50px 0px">Label Here</h1>
Padding is in this order (top) (right) (bottom) (left) clockwise essentially. So { padding: 0px 0px 50px 0px } would push other block elements 50px below whatever has the padding.

3. When in doubt, source it out. What I mean is sometimes it may take two different approaches to the same template to get the table right. In one instance I created the table in WYSIWYG v9 but it over ran my other elements when brought into the template, so I took the HTML, pasted it into notepad++, saved the file as my-file.html
Then right clicked on the file in my folder explorer and selected "Convert To Adobe PDF", then the table was where I wanted it, So I exported that to HTML, build my template around it and Voila, success.

So the moral is, there's really no easy way around tables, but if you gotta have them you gotta have them. So be patient, creative, and don't feel limited to one resource for getting it right. There's also a plethora of free conversion sites if you want to build your tables in Excel or Word first, There's trusty W3 Schools if you want to tackle it head on (really doesn't take too much to get the hang of) as well as many other options. My purpose is to explore and share ways to accomplish these tasks for those who don't write code for a living. Hope this helps!

Until next time, have a stellar day....