Re: How to join cells in tables and center content

[Marcin Borkowski <mbork@wmi.amu.edu.pl>]

Dnia 2013-05-31, o godz. 08:06:58
Bastien <bzg@gnu.org> napisał(a):

> Hi Ivanov,
> 
> Ivanov Dmitry <usr345@gmail.com> writes:
> 
> > Suppose, I am writing a database table structure.
> > Is it possible to join the 1-st two cells? And make 'table1'
> > centered?
> 
> No.
> 
> > Current view and desired:
> >
> >
> > | table1 |       |          |     table1     |
> > |--------+-------+          |--------+-------+
> > | id     | value |    ->    | id     | value |
> > |        |       |          |        |       |
> >
> >
> > I understand, that it will require programming. Just give me a hint,
> > where is the function, expanding table cells, and I'll try to
> > implement it.
> 
> Most code is in org-table.el -- but beware that even with some
> programming skills this is a hard-perhaps-impossible task...

Just random thoughts here:

It would definitely require some syntax so that Org knows that you
don't want to just extend the whole column to the width of two
columns.  Maybe something like <n> (setting of the width), but
probably something along the lines of #+TBLFM (some kind of
syntax /below/ the table) might be better.

In general, joining cells seems to be a potentially tough problem,
especially if you want to allow joining them vertically, too
(and /years/ of LaTeX experience (not mine) show that if you give
people horizontal joining, at some point they /will/ want vertical
one...  In Polish, we have a saying for that: "give it a finger, and it
will bite off your hand";).)

That said, I'd welcome such a feature.

> Good luck,

Best,

-- 
Marcin Borkowski
http://octd.wmi.amu.edu.pl/en/Marcin_Borkowski
Adam Mickiewicz University