Table Row And Column Groups

[Michael Brauer <michael.brauer@sun.com>]

Dear TC members,

one of my action items from the last con call is to clarify why table 
column and row groups can be nested.

In fact there are two kinds of grouping. The first one is the separation 
between header rows/columns and body rows/columns, where header 
rows/columns are repeated on every page, while body rows/columns aren't. 
The elements for these grouping are <table:table-header-columns>, 
<table:table-columns>, <table:table-header-rows> and <table:table-rows>. 
These element cannot be nested directly, that is, a 
<table:table-columns> element cannot contain a child element 
<table:table-columns> itself.

The second kind of grouping is existing for spreadsheet applications, 
where adjacent columns and rows can be logically grouped and where such 
groups can be made invisisble or visible. This feature is for instance 
used to group rows that are summarized, so that the individual rows that 
contribute to the sum can be made invisible easily, but the sum remains 
visible. For grouping of this kind, the <table:table-column-group> and 
<table:table-row-group> elements are existing.

Best regards

Michael