How do I adjust column widths for the announcements web part?

Question

I am trying to come up with a reasonable method for adjusting the column widths in the sharepoint 2010 (foundation) announcements web part. Specifcally, in the announcements details (listed as dispform.aspx in sharepoint designer).

The reason for this change is because the body of the typical announcements the client posts have multiple indentations and more width is require for correct display.

Adjusting the XML width property solves this partially (e.g. setting it to 1200px), but the rows/columns that display the DESCRITIONS on the left (Title, Body, Expires), have an ENORMOUS ammount of whitespace which force the title text, body text, and expires date over to the right and makes the whole page look silly.

Can anyone explain a good method for correcting this?

Answer 1

Out of the box, there's no "default" functionality for being able to set column widths. SharePoint will basically treat it like a primitive HTML table and flex the columns to fit the content.

There's methods for identifying the column by the column title using jQuery and pushing a width parameter onto the cell. You can also use CSS in some cases, though conditional CSS behaves inconsistently across browsers--particularly IE 7, 8, and 9 which all have different levels of standards non-compliance.

If you really need granular control over it you likely need to make a custom data view.