Vertically centering text in tables

["Rob Young" <rob_p_young -at- hotmail -dot- com>]

I dread reinforcing negative stereotypes of tech writers obsessing over 
layout issues, but.... What's your response to this request by my boss?

My boss (not a tech writer, though he did play one on TV for a while) would 
like to change the alignment of text in tables in our documents. He wants to 
center text vertically, particularly in tables where one column has more 
text than others (and cells with less text have lots of empty, white space).

As tables are now, rows look roughly like this:

abcde     abcde abcde abcde abcde
         abcde abcde abcde abcde
         abcde abcde abcde abcde
         abcde abcde abcde abcde
         abcde abcde abcde abcde

My boss would prefer roughly this:

         abcde abcde abcde abcde
         abcde abcde abcde abcde
abcde     abcde abcde abcde abcde
         abcde abcde abcde abcde
         abcde abcde abcde abcde

His argument is that, with top-aligned text, the text in the left column 
seems to apply only to the first line of text in the right column, but, if 
the text in the left column is centered vertically, it more clearly applies 
to all the text in the right column.

To me, it is just the opposite. Text in the left column should be aligned 
with the beginning of text it applies to in the right column. Additionally, 
top alignment of text in tables seems to be the norm. I can't find even one 
publication with text centered vertically in tables. But my boss is 
insistent; he really wants this change. He challenged me to persuade him he 
is wrong by maybe bringing in some books that say you should always top 
align text. But he also said that even then he might not be persuaded.

I thought maybe Edward Tufte addresses alignment of text in tables in one of 
his books? But is this battle even worth fighting? My sense is that, at the 
least, since readers are accustomed to top alignment, they will have to do a 
double-take if we use a vertical center alignment. I don't want that, but 
neither do I want to get petty over layout, especially with a boss who's a 
nice guy and generally agreeable to my recommendations.

Rob
______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com