Re: [bug] Tables in lists not exported to ODT

[Eric S Fraga <e.fraga@ucl.ac.uk>]

Jambunathan K <kjambunathan@gmail.com> writes:

>> One comment: for tables that are indented, it probably makes sense to
>> have the table take up 100% of the width available to it?  
>
> Do you want to maximize the real-estate available for tables - indented
> or otherwise.
>
> Indentation for tables consume some real estate. Are you saying that you
> want no indentation for tables AND have them occupy 100% of paper-width
> (save for margins).
>
>> In any case, is there an easy way to customise this from within
>> LibreOffice?  I note that, in etc/styles/OrgOdtContentTemplate.xml,
>> you have defined OrgTable with 96% for the width but I have no idea
>> how to change that value from within LibreOffice.  
>
> I am open to bumping the number to 100% by default, if that makes the
> exporter more usable.
>
> Btw, I was trying to make the tables cute-looking (i.e., have them
> occupy just the right amount of space) There is no easy way to do it
> from within org-odt + LibreOffice combo.

I understand what you were trying to do!  And I think that, for general
tables, you have taken the right approach.  It is just that for tables
within an indented environment, i.e. a list, the result is not as
pretty.  However, given your description of the limitations imposed by
Oasis etc., I think it would be best to keep things as they are as the
general use will benefit from your current style decisions.

Oh, and many thanks for explaining the way that ODT styling and so on
works.  Very helpful.

[...]

> Based on your (LaTeX) experience, what is the best way to typeset
> tables. Should they be put in a frame and configurable as floats?

There are two use cases: floating tables with captions etc and inline
tables.  In latex, both use the tabular (and other similar) environment
for the actual table contents.  This is then encapsulated within a table
environment if a floating table is desired.  In both cases, tables will
take up as much width as required by the contents of the table and, by
default, columns will be just as wide individually as necessary for
their respective contents.

A tabular environment is formatted as a character and so will only be
centred if that is specified for the paragraph it is in.  The table
environment will centre the tabular environment within its floating
environment.

Anyway, with respect to formatting, I think you have made the right
choices, given the limitations you have to work under, so I recommend
you leave things as they are!  The results are perfectly fine and look
good in the majority of cases, IMO.  Whether a table should be in a
floating environment or not is more difficult to answer.  My instinctive
reaction is to say that they should be.  However, my experience
(limited) with MS Word and LibreOffice leads me to think that this
causes problems in general.  I find the behaviour of floating frames in
word processors to be somewhat unpredictable and difficult to control,
but that could simply be me! ;-)  Others may be better placed to voice
an opinion in this case.

Thanks again,
eric

-- 
: Eric S Fraga (GnuPG: 0xC89193D8FFFCF67D) in Emacs 24.0.90.1
: using Org-mode version 7.8.03 (release_7.8.03.163.gbded9)