feature: columnar layout in Section

[mikecharles]

Is it possible to create columns in a document? I don't mean table columns, I mean columns within the body text, according to this documentation.

For example:

[scanny]

There is not yet API-level support for this in python-docx. Was that what you were asking?

[mikecharles]

Yes that's what I was wondering. Thanks! Should I leave this open for the future?

[scanny]

Yes, please

[gimbo]

+1 for this feature

[vik378]

Is anyone working on this feature now or is there any show-stopper in development? I had an urgent need in this feature and it took less than 20 minutes to figure out a working solution so I'd share if it helps anyone. Is there anything fundamentally wrong with the solution below and if not - what would be the right way to integrate it (apart from the tests)?

For those needing this now here is a quick solution:

WNS_COLS_NUM = "{http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/wordprocessingml/2006/main}num"


def set_number_of_columns(section, cols):
    """ sets number of columns through xpath. """
    section._sectPr.xpath("./w:cols")[0].set(WNS_COLS_NUM, str(cols))

use example:

from docx import Document
from docx.enum.section import WD_SECTION


doc = Document()
doc.add_paragraph("this page should be normal 1 column")
doc.add_page_break()
section = doc.add_section(WD_SECTION.NEW_PAGE)
set_number_of_columns(section, 2)
doc.add_paragraph("this page should have 2 columns and it seems to work ok")

[scanny]

Well, just offhand, I'd say you'd need to account for the case when w:cols is not already present, if it's an optional element, which, of course, most of them are. To determine that, you'd need to have the relevant parts of the XML schema, which is part of what goes on the enhancement proposal, aka. "analysis page".

Then the element name is more elegantly handled by the internal function qname(), like qname('w:num'). That function lives in docx.oxml I believe.

Also, of course, it would need to become a method on section, or more likely a set of properties or perhaps an object of its own, depending on the scope of things that can eventually be done to columns, like perhaps set their width, margin, or space between.

So you can see there would be a lot of additional details to attend to before it could be merged, and of course the tests. Best to start off with the enhancement proposal page if you want to pursue it. There would be specified the API and all the required background collected. All of this affects the implementation so best to get that discussed and merged before going more of the implementation than you'd like to redo :)

[jdhao]

@scanny is the two-column or even three-column feature implemented?

[leyiwang]

Is anyone working on this feature now or is there any show-stopper in development? I had an urgent need in this feature and it took less than 20 minutes to figure out a working solution so I'd share if it helps anyone. Is there anything fundamentally wrong with the solution below and if not - what would be the right way to integrate it (apart from the tests)?

For those needing this now here is a quick solution:

WNS_COLS_NUM = "{http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/wordprocessingml/2006/main}num"


def set_number_of_columns(section, cols):
    """ sets number of columns through xpath. """
    section._sectPr.xpath("./w:cols")[0].set(WNS_COLS_NUM, str(cols))

use example:

from docx import Document
from docx.enum.section import WD_SECTION


doc = Document()
doc.add_paragraph("this page should be normal 1 column")
doc.add_page_break()
section = doc.add_section(WD_SECTION.NEW_PAGE)
set_number_of_columns(section, 2)
doc.add_paragraph("this page should have 2 columns and it seems to work ok")

How awesome! Is there any solution to set width of each column, or set the width of line space area between two columns?

[Empty-Scott]

I have the same question! "Is there any solution to set width of each column, or set the width of line space area between two columns?"

[GaidamakUA]

It is possible to set width oh column with this code

...
WNS_COLS_WIDTH = "{http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/wordprocessingml/2006/main}space"
...
section._sectPr.xpath("./w:cols")[0].set(WNS_COLS_WIDTH, str(481))

where 481 is your desired width.