14:29:36scymtymif you don't mind the slight overhead, you can surround everything in another table. the first row of the outer table contains the heading as a cell with :align-x :center and the second row of the outer table contains the "actual" table
15:00:06contrapunctusscymtym: thanks, that worked! ^^
15:14:16scymtymjackdaniel's method would have been more efficient since fewer output records would be created and the positioning would have been trivial compared to the table layout protocol. but depending on the application, that overhead may very well be irrelevant