Fixing Column Width in Excel Render Tool

Question

Hi Alteryx Community.

Tearing my hair out at the Render tool at the moment. I'm trying to fix the width of each column to a defined value.

I have fixed the width of each column in the table tool, then set the table width to the sum of all the columns (and triple checked to make sure they align).

This width is 17.2cm. The render tool says it uses mm, but claims to use cm on the tool documentation, so I have tried setting the render tool width to 17.2 and 172, both of which fail spectacularly by making the columns extremely small. If I set the render width to something like 500, the table populates a bit more reasonably but the columns are all of varying lengths. Why is this happening when I have fixed their width earlier on?

I have even taken the sum of the widths in the excel output (using excel character-based width values), then divided that by the sum I want to get the ratio which logically should then apply to the render tool. This value comes out as 540 but that just gives me the same result.

Maddening. Does anyone have any idea how/if we can fix column widths? I don't mind a bit of flexibility, but just want columns to be consistent.

Attached a sample workflow as an example. With width set to 17.2cm and a misbehaving output. Rows A, B & C should have the same width for example.

Many thanks in advance.

Misbehavingtable.yxmd

amitejrana · Answer

Output tool would work in generating multi tabbed excel, just use formula tab before it where in define the path and sheet name via a formula.

Benk95 · Answer

Thanks Brandon,

But unfortunately no. My specified "per column" widths for the first three rows for example are all equal, so I would expect them to be equal in the excel.

However, in your screenshot and when I run following your changes, all three have different widths. It looks like the specifications are being entirely ignored, and Render is just text wrapping the columns to fit the size specified in the Render tool, which begs the question of why does the table tool bother to allow size modifications?

Is there a way I can generate a multi-tabbed Excel without the render tool perhaps?

Thanks

BrandonB · Answer

If you set the basic table width to Automatic and then configure the width of each column in the "per column configuration" it seems to render out properly. Does the screenshot below look good?