Tables

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darrylinjapan

Hello all. This is my first post to the forums. I hope I'm posting in the right place.

I'm new to Scribus, but I am enjoying exploring what it is capable of. I'm using Scribus 1.4.2 on a MacBook 2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with 2 GB of memory running Lion (10.7.5). Tables do not work. I have tried from the insert menu and from the button in the tool bar with the same results: I get an empty frame showing no table cells at all. When I go to the line portion of the properties pallet, there are no options for cell borders as shown in the online documentation.

Is this a known problem? Is there anything I'm missing. A search of the forums didn't help. I would appreciate any help.

Regards,
Darryl

Arran

First after the initial setup of a table, you have to degroup (?) the table. Keyboard: CTRL+Shift+G. In the menue it is in the third tab, called (in German) Objekt.

«Grouping» is one of the vital factors in tables and vector graphics, so please try to get to grip with this technique.

Do you speak (or at least understand) German? There is a good course in that language for beginners. Let me know by PM, if you are interested.

I also found a how-to in this portal, so you have not searched well ... Click here. It explains the basic steps. However, you have now to do the ungrouping in any case first.
Have you first consulted the Manual? You can probably find the solution there.

Happy Greetings from Scotland's nicest Holiday Island

a.l.e

press the alt-key and then click on the cells to select them.
double clicking (with alt-key down) brings you in edit mode.

and don't try to ungroup the table, it's not a good idea :-)

btw, tables in 1.4.x are a mess. 1.5.x (the development version) is much better but would also need lot of improvements to be really usable.

currently, the best way to use tables in scribus is not to use them.
use tabulators for simpler cases and import tables (as drawings?) from openoffice (or other software) for more complex ones.

ciao
a.l.e

Arran

Hello a.l.e.

I just tried your method but get no result at all. I need to mount first in each cell either a text or a picture frame, which is not possible in a grouped table.

And why is ungrouping not a good idea? How would I then change heights and widths of the individual cell?

The Scribus table creation is in my opinion just about right for things which will be printed, even if it is a print published as a pdf in the net. Once printed, a document is no more variable. One of the advantages of print is, that lies – and truths – become archivable and can be reread for ever.  This is not so in the net.

In my time as a typographical compositor I had to make many tables in lead, which was an awful work, especially to keep lines in order. It was not only 2 rows, 3 colums, sometime they were a full A4 page with dozends of cells. I did quite a number of work for two banks with their yearly reports full of figures and the yearly Budget for the town of Zürich. Then there were about 10 compositors working on the over hundered A4 tables which had to be amended yearly in about 2 weeks. The going joke was who threw the largest sum out of the windows, by actually throwing the led-types out of the window.

So, conclusion: if I want something printed, I can use the onboard tools.
Have you first consulted the Manual? You can probably find the solution there.

Happy Greetings from Scotland's nicest Holiday Island

Arran

Quote from: a.l.e on February 12, 2013, 01:24:29 PM
press the alt-key and then click on the cells to select them.
double clicking (with alt-key down) brings you in edit mode.

Salute
I just clicked by accident on the CTRL key, e presto, this worked.  ;D
So I retire my above sentence tabels work only by degrouping. But not from the other points I mentioned.  ;)
Have you first consulted the Manual? You can probably find the solution there.

Happy Greetings from Scotland's nicest Holiday Island

darrylinjapan

Thank you very much for your help. I now understand how to use tables. Unfortunately, I can't speak or read German, but I appreciate the offer of help.

Regards,

Darryl