How to align multiple tables added to a single table using itextsharp in c#?

Question

I have created a table with 3 columns and another table with 6 columns which is then added to another table to make it into a single table. I want to align the second column of the 3 column table and second columns of 6 column table like this:

Can anyone tell me how to align the second columns of 2 different table? I am using iTextsharp for creating the tables.

Answer 1

There are multiple ways to do this. I'll explain two.

Two tables with aligned column widths

Set the column widths to get the desired alignment.

// Table with 3 columns
PdfPTable table1 = new PdfPTable(3);
table1.SetTotalWidth(new float[] { 50, 10, 300 });

table1.AddCell("One");
table1.AddCell(" ");
table1.AddCell(" ");

// Table with 6 columns
PdfPTable table2 = new PdfPTable(6);
// Column 1 and 2 are the same widths as those of table1
// Width of columns 3-6 sum up to the width of column 3 of table1
table2.SetTotalWidth(new float[] { 50, 10, 120, 50, 10, 120 });
for (int row = 0; row < 2; row++)
{
    for (int column = 0; column < 6; column++)
    {
        table2.AddCell(" ");
    }
}

doc.Add(table1);
doc.Add(table2);

... with an outer table

You mentioned adding both tables in another table. If that's an explicit requirement, it's possible:

// Outer table with 1 column
PdfPTable outer = new PdfPTable(1);

// create table1 and table2 like in the previous example

// Add both tables to the outer table
outer.AddCell(new PdfPCell(table1));
outer.AddCell(new PdfPCell(table2));

doc.Add(outer);

The visual result is the same as above.

Using colspans

Instead of thinking of two separate tables, you can also consider this one table where some cells are spanning multiple columns.

// Table with 6 columns
PdfPTable table = new PdfPTable(6);
table.SetWidths(new float[] { 50, 10, 120, 50, 10, 120 });

table.AddCell("Two");
table.AddCell(" ");
// Third cell on the first row has a colspan of 4
PdfPCell cell = new PdfPCell();
cell.Colspan = 4;
table.AddCell(cell);

// Second and third row have 6 cells
for (int row = 0; row < 2; row++)
{
    for (int column = 0; column < 6; column++)
    {
        table.AddCell(" ");
    }
}

doc.Add(table);

The benefit of this approach is that you don't have to fiddle with keeping column widths consistent between multiple tables. Because this is one table, the columns will always be aligned.