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

[Charles C. Berry]

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.

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---

* 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

--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

HTH,

Chuck