Cutting & Pasting Tables

[Jay_NOLA]

Does some sort of easy method exist to do a cut and past of tables/charts quickly.

If I'm copying a table/chart spreadsheet into realm work it doesn't look right, text is all pressed to together and you can't tell what is in what column easily as a result, so I usually have to just recreate the entire table from scratch. This can sometimes be eat up a lot of time.

So does anyone have any advice on how to speed up things if you need to bring in a table from a PDF into Realm Works.

[Grey Mage]

Wish I had something for you... but I have entered dozens of tables in RW and cut n paste cell by cell is the best way I have found. Use the tablemaker to get your rows and cells right and then just add in the data. Comes out looking good that way.

If anyone does have a better way to strip formatting (font, size, bold, etc) and then get it into the proper row and cell I will happily sign on to a better method.

[AEIOU]

I paste tables without issue from Excel all the time. Easy peasy. Perfection without even a hint of frustration.

If you are pasting from PDF, then good luck to you and may you have the patience of the gods for your endeavor. PDFs are an odd beast which others here can better describe the reasons why.

[Silveras]

I use Word instead of Excel

For PDFs, I copy the table to Word, where it comes in as text just it does in RealmWorks. I put tabs between the cells on each row, then select (highlight) the text that belongs in a table... choose "Table | Convert Text to Table".. select the "tab" as the column delimiter option (Word usually has it recognized automatically), and "Paragraphs" as the row delimiter (again, Word usually picks this up automatically), and click Ok. Then just cut and paste the table from word into RealmWorks.

RealmWorks operates just enough like Word to make me very frustrated at the points where it doesn't, such as some table operations.

[Grey Mage]

Silveras, I tried that before and it was still hinky enough that I went back to cell by cell table building. I will give it a try again, since the code has evolved a bit.

Thanks for the tip.

[Jay_NOLA]

@AEIO Good luck is definitely needed since I'm pasting from PDFs which do weird stuff. Text spacing, removing stuff, etc. Patience has been a major thing, but I've been working on just getting the basic info for the game and setting in for months and that is very time consuming given how many tables I've had to and still need to enter.

The only thing that seems to cut down the weird PDF cut problems is to cut first into Word or Notepad.

@Silveras Thanks, I'll give that i try tonight when I work on entering another table.

Right now, I've been cutting and pasting the text from PDFs into Word or Notepad then cutting the text into Realm Works. Making a table and then having to cut and paste or enter in each cells entry so far, which is very time consuming since I'm working with big tables.

[Jay_NOLA]

Ok I tried out bring the table into word and converting it to text.

Noticed that in some cases it was actually taking me longer than if I made the table in Realm Works, and just copied and pasted or typed the text.

It was having to merge cells and the align the columns evenly and make sure they all fit

For example I have a column table that has for example an item with a name in one and price in another

Housing Poor 50
Housing Moderate 120

This gets turned into a 3 column table when I conert it to a table in Word as it makes a new table where each space is.
I then have to merge 2 cells and fix the text so the cell with
Housing Poor shows it as
Housing Poor
instead of
Housing
Poor

with Poor being on another line.

Word wasn't recognizing making the table right even with the delimiters recommended to use by Silveras.

On a positive note for some tables despite having to do all the merging, etc. it still came out quicker than have to do the table from the ground up. So the cut and paste into Word and make table then cut into Realm works is good for only some tables I've noticed to speed up entry time into Realm Works.

The trick is knowing what tables to do this for and which ones not to.

[Silveras]

When you choose to "Convert Text to Table", there are some options you can set before clicking "Ok" to confirm. Make sure the option for columns is set to "Tab".. if there are no tabs in your text, you will need to add them. Id you only have spaces, Word will assume that's what you want to use to make separate columns.

My steps:

• Copy table from PDF to clipboard
• Paste into Word
• Select all text
• Set the font type and size I want (to match what I use in RealmWorks anyway)
• Where each column should be, I make sure there is a TAB; this will make the text look uneven in some cases until you convert, but then it lines up. Also, delete extra spaces.
• Make sure any header has enough TABs to create columns to match the table body (even if some will later be merged)
• select all of the text in the table again
• Select Insert|Convert Text to Table
• Make sure that Word has selected "TAB" as the delimiter for columns
• Check that the number of columns is what I expected; look over the rows to see if I can find any errors. If I can't, proceed...
• Click Ok
• Check the result for mis-aligned text / columns; Use Ctrl-Z to Undo if necessary
• Fix any errors I found and repeat selecting text and convert to table
• Merge any Title row cells that need to be merged
• Merge any other cells that I want for fancy formatting (like titles that extend across all columns in the middle of the table).
• Copy and paste into RealmWorks

With a little practice, it becomes fairly quick.

Short tables may not be worth the effort, and may just be easier to enter directly in RealmWorks.

So, for your example.. .

• Copy from PDF
• Paste into word
• Add a TAB between "Housing Poor" and 50
• Add a TAB between "Housing Moderate" and 120
• Select both lines
• Select Insert|Convert Text to Table
• Check that "TAB" is the selected delimiter
• Click Ok

That should convert those 2 lines into a 2-row 2-column table with the numbers in the second column.

[AEIOU]

I hope Rob is taking notes. Table importation needs attention.

[Jay_NOLA]

Thanks,
Silveras I had some time to enter in a few more tables and adding a Tab made the difference in me getting able to get stuff entered in quickly.

Your detailed steps are something that would make a good video tutorial to show for Realm Works or to include in the manual of tips.

I did have one table that for some reason Word would not let me add a Tab in show up.