I just figured out that this 

#+BEGIN_SRC emacs-lisp :results table
'((H1 H2 H3) (text11 text12 text13) (text21 text22 text23) (... ... ...) (textN1 textN2 textN3))
#+END_SRC

#+RESULTS:
| H1     | H2     | H3     |
| text11 | text12 | text13 |
| text21 | text22 | text23 |
| ...    | ...    | ...    |
| textN1 | textN2 | textN3 |

is probably a better way all around, i.e., "best practice." If any one knows how to get the horizontal lines added in. . . .

On Thu, Dec 12, 2019 at 5:29 AM Simon Butler <simon@floss.nu> wrote:
Hi

On 2019-12-12 07:05, Lawrence Bottorff wrote:
> I've got a big table that I would like to create a template for, i.e.,
> the rows and columns and the myriad | and -. Then a key chord would
> produce it in an org file ready for values to be entered. I've seen
> the post-9.2 tempo-define-template, but that looks more suited to
> smaller things. There is Emacs Skeleton, but I'd like to ask people
> who perhaps have faced this issue before for a "best practice" answer.
>
> LB

Not sure about 'best practice', but yasnippet works well.

Simon