Control column widths in a table

Question

I learned about controlling width of TOC columns from https://support.bible/12103/formatting-toc. This was helpful for professional-looking Front Matter. I discovered I could size the columns more precisely by setting the Left Indent Factor to a positive number and the First Line Indent Factor to a negative number. I've replied to that topic with details of what I did.

But tweaking the Indent Factors seems only to work for the complex \cat:toc styles. I can't seem to adjust column widths in two static tables in the Front Matter, which list the language's OT and NT book names. 

My tables in the screenshot are centred on the page but off-balance with each other. It would look much better if both tables had the same dimensions, but tweaking the Table Column styles (\tc1...\tc4) Left... and First Line Indent factors has no effect on the column spacing, and the two tables align very differently (whereas the cat:toc styles apply to all TOCs in the publication, I believe.

It would also look much nicer if the "gutter" between the two tables were centred, that is, if columns 1 and 3 were the same width. The long rendering of Revelation causes the NT table to look lopsided. 

Hmm, could I specify the tables as 2-column sections? With the second title as a single-column section? Don't know if this is possible in a Front Matter file.

Sample code for the tables:
\tr \tc1 Uakeken \tc2 Uak \tc3 O Uelhireng Tar Niate Uaia \tc4 OUNU
\tr \tc1 Kale Tapokis \tc2 KT \tc3 No Kereker Solomon \tc4 NKS

    

   

Answer 1

It seems you may have already found an answer to this question (looking at your other post), but YES, you can do 2-column layout of your contents tables. @mhosken managed to create what you're asking for in a recent typesetting job. Hopefully he can point you in the right direction on how to achieve this (automatically) from the Front Matter tab.

Comments

Yes, @mhosken, the TOC here is exactly what I would like to see. Can you describe how to do it, please?

FYI, @Mark+P, the method I described in the "Formatting TOC" post for tweaking column widths in a TOC *does not work* for a static table; it seems only to work with the complex \cat:toc|tcX styles. I tried to add the indent factors to the "normal" \tcX styles but they had no effect. Am I missing something there?

Answer 2

Here's how I did the two column table of contents shown by Mark:

\periph Table of Contents|id="contents"
\mt \zvar|contentsheader\*
\is Old Testament
\zgap|-18pt\*
\doublecolumns
\ztoc|ot\*
\singlecolumn
\is ~
\is New Testament
\zgap|-18pt\*
\doublecolumns
\ztoc|nt\*
\b
\ztoc|post\*
\singlecolumn

\periph Alphabetical Contents|id="alphacontents"
\is Alphabetical Order of Books
\zgap|-18pt\*
\doublecolumns
\ztoc|biba\*
\singlecolumn
\nopagenums

Comments

Notice the \zgap|-18pt\* is used to pull up the blank line that is inserted between single and double column material. We do it before we transition so that it applies across the page rather than for just one column.

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I'll be honest. I don't know why I needed the \is ~, but I did. That's production for you!