Rows and Columns

AddRow lays out columns side by side - e.g. a logo next to a company name, or a stat strip with three centered numbers - within the content width. It’s available in Content, Header, and Footer, but columns themselves can’t nest another row inside them.

Building a row

c.AddRow(row =>
{
    row.AddColumn(48, col => col.AddImage("logo.png", widthPx: 40));
    row.AddColumn(col =>
    {
        col.AddText("Acme Corporation").Bold().FontSize(20);
        col.AddText("123 Market Street").FontSize(12);
    });
});

RowBuilder has two AddColumn overloads:

• AddColumn(Action<RowColumnBuilder> configure) - an auto-width column that shares the leftover width equally with other auto-width columns.
• AddColumn(double widthPx, Action<RowColumnBuilder> configure) - a column with an explicit fixed width.

ContentBuilder.AddRow/PageSectionBuilder.AddRow both take the same signature:

AddRow(Action<RowBuilder> configure, double columnGapPx = 12, RowVerticalAlignment verticalAlignment = RowVerticalAlignment.Middle)

and return a RowHandle for chaining margin modifiers (see Styling: Rows and row columns).

Column width resolution

Same algorithm as table columns (see Tables: Column width resolution): fixed-width columns get exactly what you specified; whatever’s left after subtracting fixed widths and the gaps between columns (columnGapPx * (columnCount - 1)) is divided equally among the auto-width columns. If fixed widths and gaps alone exceed the available width, auto columns are pinned to 0 rather than going negative.

Vertical alignment

When columns in the same row have different content heights, RowVerticalAlignment controls how the shorter ones line up against the row’s tallest column:

c.AddRow(row =>
{
    row.AddColumn(120, col => col.AddText("One line"));
    row.AddColumn(col =>
    {
        col.AddText("Line 1");
        col.AddText("Line 2");
        col.AddText("Line 3");
    });
}, verticalAlignment: RowVerticalAlignment.Top);

The row’s overall height is the tallest column’s measured height (plus the row’s own margins) - shorter columns don’t stretch to fill it, they’re just positioned within it per VerticalAlignment.

Column content defaults

A RowColumnBuilder’s text elements (AddText/AddHeading/AddPageNumber) default to marginBottomPx: 0, unlike their ContentBuilder counterparts. This is deliberate: a column’s measured height needs to match its visible content for RowVerticalAlignment to line columns up correctly - if the last line in a column carried an invisible trailing margin, the column would measure taller than it looks, and vertical centering would be visibly off. Chain .MarginBottom(...) explicitly if you want deliberate spacing between elements stacked within the same column.

RowColumnBuilder supports AddText, AddHeading, AddPageNumber, AddImage (file or bytes), AddRule, and AddSpacer - see the comparison table in Content Elements for what’s deliberately not available inside a column (tables, lists, nested rows, page breaks, raw HTML).

Column padding

RowBuilder.AddColumn returns a RowColumnHandle with Padding(...) to inset that column’s stacked content from its own box edges, independent of the column’s width:

row.AddColumn(col => col.AddText("Hi")).Padding(8);
row.AddColumn(48, col => col.AddImage("logo.png", widthPx: 40))
    .Padding(topPx: 15, 0, 0, 0);

Padding reduces the inner width available to the column’s own elements (column width - left padding - right padding) without changing the column’s resolved width in the row’s layout - so padding never throws off the row’s overall column-width math, it only affects how the column’s content sits within its allotted space.

Rows never split

Like an image, a row is always placed whole. If a row doesn’t fit even on a completely empty page, it’s force-placed and recorded as a LayoutWarning - the same fallback described in Pagination and Layout: Warnings. In practice this matters for rows with a lot of stacked content in one column (e.g. many lines of wrapped text) on a very short page - keep tall row content modest, or split it into separate non-row elements if it might not fit.

Margins

A Row has the same four margin properties as a TextStyle (MarginTopPx/MarginRightPx/MarginBottomPx/MarginLeftPx, defaulting to 0/0/8/0), set via the RowHandle returned by AddRow:

c.AddRow(row => { ... }).Margin(12).MarginTop(20);

Left/right margin shrinks the width available to the row’s columns from that edge (and shifts the row right, for left margin); top/bottom margin adds vertical space exactly like a text element’s margin does.

Where to go next

• Content Elements for how Row compares to the library’s other elements.
• Styling for the full list of RowHandle/RowColumnHandle modifiers.
• Cookbook: Row layouts for a complete invoice-style header/footer built from rows.

View this page's source on GitHub →