Re: What to use for tables with lengthy text in cells?

[Jude DaShiell <jdashiel@shellworld.net>]

Why not do it this way?  An org table gets a second file created along 
with it.  That second file holds all writing going into the table.  That 
second file has a link for each cell too.  All links point to the 
original org table file and each entry in the second file at its end has 
a return link that returns the user to the original org table.  
Alternatively, all of this could be stored in the table file itself with 
perhaps only the large content cells having links to below the table 
proper area which when opened would show the longer text and provide a 
return link back to the original cell in the table.  Probably all it 
would need is a #+DATA header separating the table from the longer cells 
content area so users could know what was what when examining the file.  
If this sounds too off the wall, I had some high quality coffee this 
morning.

On Tue, 3 Mar 2015, Tory S. Anderson wrote:

> It's not a perfect solution (many of us have wished for some way of doing multi-line cells in orgmode, but there's no clear solution...) but I use a combination of width restraints[1] and toggle-truncate-lines, which I've bound to <F5>. If it comes to the worst, I would probably pull out csv-mode and use a CSV file. I think the problem is that there's no simple way to wrap within just a cell in Emacs. 
> 
> "Charles C. Berry" <ccberry@ucsd.edu> writes:
> 
> > 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.
> >
> >
> > * 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
> >
> > HTH,
> >
> > Chuck
> 
> Footnotes: 
> [1]  http://orgmode.org/manual/Column-width-and-alignment.html#Column-width-and-alignment
> 
> 
> 

jude <jdashiel@shellworld.net>
Twitter: @JudeDaShiell