From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
From: "Charles C. Berry" <ccberry@ucsd.edu>
Subject: Re: What to use for tables with lengthy text in cells?
Date: Mon, 2 Mar 2015 15:16:52 -0800
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To: Matt Price <moptop99@gmail.com>
Cc: Org Mode <emacs-orgmode@gnu.org>

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.

For example, with ob-org.el loaded, with this org file:


--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
#+NAME: abc
#+BEGIN_SRC org :exports none
   This is chunk ~abc~.
#+END_SRC

Formatting via ascii:
#+BEGIN_SRC emacs-lisp :var x=abc() :exports results
(org-export-string-as x 'ascii t)
#+END_SRC

And plainly: call_abc()
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

export via ascii yields:


--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
Formatting via ascii:
,----
| This is chunk `abc'.
`----

And plainly: `This is chunk ~abc~.'
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---


You can also use the noweb idiom to capture the contents of
any kind of src block.

HTH,

Chuck