How to align bottom a PdfPCell spaning across more than one page? - itext

Question

I'm using iTextSharp version 4.1.6.16. I have a PdfPTable with two columns (1 row).
There is a lot of content in right cell so it spans across whole page and reaches next page.
In the left cell I only want to put some small PdfPTable at its bottom. To do it I use cell.VerticalAlignment = Element.ALIGN_BOTTOM; on the left cell of topmost table. This works well if the row is not bigger than a page.
If the row reaches next page, then the content of the left cell is indeed aligned to bottom, but to bottom of first page. So the right cell's content still continues on the next page, but the left cell is empty there (I tested with background color that it spans to next page also).
I tried setting KeepTogether on the inner table but it doesn't have any effect. I also thought about doing it with CellEvent but I couldn't find so far how to position IElement (not only Image or text) absolutely in the cell.
Is it a bug or designed behavior, that the content is aligned to the bottom of the first page the cell occupies? Is there a workaround or some better way to put content at the bottom of the cell no matter where it ends?

Answer 1

I've finally solved the issue with following workaround.
I created a CellEvent that gets PdfPTable and shifts it upwards as much as its content takes:
class BottomFix : IPdfPCellEvent
{
private readonly PdfPTable _content;
public BottomFix(PdfPTable content)
{
_content = content;
}
public void CellLayout(PdfPCell cell, Rectangle position, PdfContentByte[] canvases)
{
_content?.WriteSelectedRows(0, -1, position.Left, position.Top + _content.TotalHeight, canvases[PdfPTable.BACKGROUNDCANVAS]);
}
}
Then to my original two-row table I added second row, and I add there a cell of height equal to 0, where instead of putting content into, I use this CellEvent. The original left cell is left empty, so the content of next row is pushed onto it and it looks as it was originally there. I don't have borders in this table so they are not an issue, but it can also be solved by setting border of this 1px cell to none.
var cell = new PdfPCell();
var table = new PdfPTable(1) { /* some content etc... */ };
cell.FixedHeight = 0;
cell.CellEvent = new BottomFix(table);
// such prepared cell goes to top level table, second row, left column