From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: "Charles C. Berry" Subject: Re: What to use for tables with lengthy text in cells? Date: Tue, 3 Mar 2015 10:08:13 -0800 Message-ID: References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed Return-path: Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:49979) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1YSrF2-0000cI-Lb for emacs-orgmode@gnu.org; Tue, 03 Mar 2015 13:08:25 -0500 Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1YSrEy-00007Q-Ka for emacs-orgmode@gnu.org; Tue, 03 Mar 2015 13:08:24 -0500 Received: from iport-acv2-out.ucsd.edu ([132.239.0.174]:58226) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1YSrEy-000076-9W for emacs-orgmode@gnu.org; Tue, 03 Mar 2015 13:08:20 -0500 In-Reply-To: List-Id: "General discussions about Org-mode." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-orgmode-bounces+geo-emacs-orgmode=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sender: emacs-orgmode-bounces+geo-emacs-orgmode=m.gmane.org@gnu.org To: Matt Price Cc: Org Mode On Mon, 2 Mar 2015, Charles C. Berry wrote: > On Mon, 2 Mar 2015, Matt Price wrote: > >> I have a project which will require me to enter about a paragraph in each >> of 5 fields several times a day. I would use org tables, but I need to be >> able to see the table contents in the buffer, and org hides long lines. I >> tried using table.el but it feels incredibly clumsy - for instance, I can't >> find a way to add a row to the end of the table, which seems crazy. >> >> I am wondering what other people do in this situation - I guess I could >> use a spreadsheet or an odt document but I would much rather stay in emacs >> if I can. > > I sometimes use babel blocks for this purpose. > But I did not give an example of filling in a table using that strategy. So here is an example of how you would use that strategy to fill out a table with fields that get edited. Obviously, you can use the string resulting from org-fill-template in other ways than in the example below. --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8--- * Not exported :noexport: Define a table template (and put it out of the way in a subtree that is not exported) #+name: tmplt #+BEGIN_SRC org | Never change me | %a | | %b | Dont modify me either | #+END_SRC Define the fill-in cells and be sure they are not exported: #+name: pcta #+BEGIN_SRC org this is ~a~. #+END_SRC #+name: pctb #+BEGIN_SRC org this is *b*. #+END_SRC * This gets exported #+HEADER: :var a=pcta() :var b=pctb() :var tm=tmplt() #+BEGIN_SRC emacs-lisp :wrap latex :exports results (org-export-string-as (org-fill-template tm `(("a" . ,a)("b" . ,b))) 'latex t) #+END_SRC #+RESULTS: #+BEGIN_latex \begin{center} \begin{tabular}{ll} Never change me & this is \verb~a~.\\ this is \textbf{b}. & Dont modify me either\\ \end{tabular} \end{center} #+END_latex --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8--- HTH, Chuck