Apache POI Word insert both table and text at the same level

Question

I want to insert both a table and some text at the same level in a XWPFDocument using Apache POI, meaning that the table will be on the left side and the text on it'r right side, just like in this template:

Using a solution providing a cursor found around, does not seems to make it work. This is the approach commonly used:

XWPFTable table = document.createTable();

XWPFTableRow tableRowOne = table.getRow(0);
tableRowOne.getCell(0).setText("col one");
tableRowOne.addNewTableCell().setText("col two");
tableRowOne.addNewTableCell().setText("col three");

XmlCursor cursor = table.getCTTbl().newCursor();
cursor.toEndToken();

while(cursor.toNextToken() != org.apache.xmlbeans.XmlCursor.TokenType.START);
XWPFParagraph paragraph2 = document.insertNewParagraph(cursor);

XWPFRun run = paragraph2.createRun();
run.setText("Abstract: ");

The result is this:

Do you have any idea there is a way to make it work? Thanks.

Answer 1

The XmlCursor is the wrong way here. An XmlCursor gets used to get or insert XML into a special position of an XML document. But what you need is either a table property (text wrapping) or a page setting (multiple columns on page).

To get a page spiltted into two columns, see How to add continuous section break to XWPFDocument?. There left side also may contain a table.

To set table properties, which not are available using XWPFTable one can do the following:

Create a *.docx document having the setting. See Set or change table properties for how to set table text wrapping.

Unzip the *.docx file (each Office Open XML file is simply a ZIP archive) and have a look into /word/document.xml. You will find something like

<w:tbl>
 <w:tblPr>
  <w:tblpPr w:vertAnchor="text"/>
  <w:tblOverlap w:val="never"/>
 ...
 </w:tblPr>
 ...
</w:tbl>

for table XML.

That are TableProperties having TablePositionProperties and TableOverlap.

Now recreate this using org.openxmlformats.schemas.wordprocessingml.x2006.main.* classes.

Complete example:

import java.io.FileOutputStream;

import org.apache.poi.xwpf.usermodel.*;

public class CreateWordTableTextWrapping {
    
 public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {

  XWPFDocument document = new XWPFDocument();

  XWPFParagraph paragraph = document.createParagraph();
  XWPFRun run = paragraph.createRun();  
  run.setText("Text before table...");

  XWPFTable table = document.createTable(1, 3);
  table.setWidth("50%");
  
  //set table text wrapping
  //get table properties, add new table position properties, set vertical anchor Text
  table.getCTTbl().getTblPr().addNewTblpPr().setVertAnchor​(org.openxmlformats.schemas.wordprocessingml.x2006.main.STVAnchor.TEXT);
  //set table position properties Y in TwIPs (TWentieth of an Inch Point) - must be at least 1 for Office 365
  table.getCTTbl().getTblPr().getTblpPr().setTblpY​(1);
  //get table properties, add new table overlap, set value Never
  table.getCTTbl().getTblPr().addNewTblOverlap().setVal(org.openxmlformats.schemas.wordprocessingml.x2006.main.STTblOverlap.NEVER);

  paragraph = document.createParagraph();
  run = paragraph.createRun();  
  run.setText("Text after table...");

  FileOutputStream out = new FileOutputStream("./CreateWordTableTextWrapping.docx");
  document.write(out);
  out.close();
  document.close();

 }
}