What does LibreOffice recognize as a column delimiter?

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#1

Hi Everyone,

I have a Writer document with a Table inside. The table is large at
about 3 columns x 500 rows. When I attempt to highlight the table
cells and paste the data from a single 1 x 1500 source LibreOffice
mishandles populating the table.

I'm generating the data from a C++ program so I can format the data in
a way that makes Writer happy. For example, I can use a vertical bar:

   a | b | c
   d | e | f
   ...

Or I can use something else.

I already tried to use vertical bars and HTML tags like <tr>...</tr>,
but the paste did not work.

What does LibreOffice recognize as a column delimiter? So I can
perform the 3x500 paste into the table?

Thanks in advance.

Jeff

#2

I put the data in a file called tabel1.csv
Then imported the data into Calc (Vertical Bar is 124)
The following command loaded the file into a calc spreadsheet.
libreoffice --infilter=CSV:124,34,76,1 tabel1.csv
Then copied it into writer.
Tried to do it with --writer, but it results in just text rather than a table.
Might be a way to do it directly, but don't know myself. Do more with
calc.

I'd just have the c program make standard csv format file with , or ; but
Vertical bar does work with the 124 code. Then just copy it from calc
into writer.

Send reply to: noloader@gmail.com

#3

delimiter?

Hi Everyone,

I have a Writer document with a Table inside. The table is large at
about 3 columns x 500 rows. When I attempt to highlight the table
cells and paste the data from a single 1 x 1500 source LibreOffice
mishandles populating the table.

I'm generating the data from a C++ program so I can format the data in
a way that makes Writer happy. For example, I can use a vertical bar:

   a | b | c
   d | e | f
   ...

Or I can use something else.

I already tried to use vertical bars and HTML tags like <tr>...</tr>,
but the paste did not work.

What does LibreOffice recognize as a column delimiter? So I can
perform the 3x500 paste into the table?

Thanks in advance.

Jeff

Hi Jeff.

One possible option would be to generate your table in a csv layout
using tabs as the delimiter.

1<tab>2<tab>3<tab>4<cr>
5<tab>6<tab>7<tab>8<cr>

Rather than trying to paste into an existing table, paste the csv format
as plain text. Then highlight the pasted text and select Writer's main
menu "Table -> Convert -> Text to Table"option, identifying tabs as the
delimiter.

See Chapter 13 of the Writer Guide:
https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/images/a/a4/WG64-WriterGuide.pdf

Hope this helps.

Dave

#4

re: Field Separator

The unicode tab (Ux0009) should be the best 'field separator.'

re: Formatting.

If this is like dictionary info (word, type, long definition).... you
should carefully consider making it paragraphs and separate those fields
with a tab.

If your data is more like a list (month, year, sales number), I would pull
the information into Calc and format it there, then paste the data by
selecting the cells, then copy/paste into Writer. Because of the issues
with formatting tabular data after its in Writer has been broken as you
describe for several versions. And you'll be able to adjust in Calc
without having to struggle... the cells just keep going, no pages flipping
on you.

If the data were already stucdk in Writer, You might also try turning on
Web View while you work on the table data within Writer. This has the
downside that it can cause some weird things to happen on other pages
you've already formatted, but if your table is already stuck in Writer web
view tends to work better than page views on big tables.