At 13:47 18/05/2007 -0500, Luciano EspSanto wrote:
Hi. I've been trying to convert text into table with a few special
requirements and can't get it to work right. This probably won't be
clear if you don't download this zip file:
http://download.yousendit.com/071FB4821073A8E6
This zip file contains two files: "table_challenge_input.odt" and
"table_challenge_output.odt".
"table_challenge_input.odt" is what I have: no table, just text.
"table_challenge_output.odt" is what I would like to have after a
conversion operation.
It would have to be separated very clearly, so I would like to use
"@" as the separator character. It can be placed wherever necessary,
so long as the result looks just like the table in
"table_challenge_output.odt". I am very good at regular expressions
and I can insert the separator wherever I want or need them. The
problem is I don't know *where* to insert it to get the expected result.
The last requirement is to have two empty columns after those two first ones.
I've tried to place the separator @ in many positions, but have
never been able to get any more than 2 columns. Besides, the
resulting two columns are too messy. The cells are not filled in as
they are supposed to be, many cells end up empty, it's just unusable.
Can anybody give me a clue about how to achieve what I want?
Many thanks.
--
Luciano ES
Santos, SP - Brasil
>>
I think your main problem is that you have the text for column two
already formatted into lines, as you will want it in the final
table. I don't see any way of preventing your end-of-paragraph
markers telling the conversion process that you want to move to a new
row in the table at that point - which you don't. So the first thing
to do is either to merge the two parts of the text for each cell in
column two into a single piece of text and let Writer later wrap
these automatically in the table cell, or else to replace these
end-of-paragraph markers only by line breaks (Shift+Enter). That's
your choice.
Then you just need to construct each line (paragraph, in fact) of the text as:
<first column text>@<second column text><paragraph marker>
or, if you prefer:
<first column text>@<second column, first line><line break><second
column, second line><paragraph marker>
If you now convert that to a table, you will get almost what you
want, the only problem being that you will get two columns instead of
the four that you require. The trick to produce four columns is just
to put two trailing "@" signs (your chosen separator) at the end of
any single line (yes: you only need to do this for one line), so that it reads:
<first column text>@<second column text>@@<paragraph marker>
Then the conversion should produce four columns with the last two
empty, and something very close to what you need.
An alternative is to create the table as two columns, as you say you
already have, and then to add two empty columns later. To do this,
first place the cursor somewhere in the second column, and then use
Table | Insert > | Columns... and select "2" and "After". You can
always adjust the column widths once you have done this, of course.
I trust this helps.
Brian Barker
---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
