🚀 go-pugleaf

Sian,

Another way to do this without resorting to a table structure is to
use two paragraph styles in concert. 

The first paratag (e.g. H1_bkgrnd) would contain the graphic reference
frame (set to Above - so you won't have gaps when starting at the top
of a page) to get your background graphic area. Setting the height of
the background colour to about twice the heading font size is a good
starting point. This paratag also should have the "Next Pgf Tag"
setting set to the paratag that is formatted for the actual heading
text (e.g. H1).

You then need to set the H1_bkgrnd paratag to have a Below Pgf
negative line spacing approximately to 1.5x the height of the
background box (or font size) and a Line Spacing of "0". Then set the
Above Pgf spacing for the H1 tag to be the same negative value as for
the background tags below setting.

What this will do is move the H1 paragraph back up over top of the
background reference graphic frame. You may have to play with the
below/above values to get things vertically centred the way you want
it.

Then to use it, simply insert the H1_bkgrnd tag, hit the enter key,
type your heading text and hit enter again. 

Quite simple and automatic once it's implemented. An additional
benefit is that the headings will never get out of order in a
generated list as they might when tables are used (FM scans the main
flow first and then each table on a page when creating TOCs). Tables
also use up more resources in FM, but these days, this isn't as big an
issue as it was a decade or so ago.

For two-line headings, you need to create additional paratags that
have a larger vertical dimension for a two-line graphic reference
frame and heading (the space above/below will be different for the
pair so you need additional tags, e.g. H1_bkgrnd_2line & H1_2line).

It sounds a bit more complicated than creating the table, but it's
actually easier for the user to insert once your template has been
properly created for these style pairs.