Is there a way to enter tabular data?

Jennifer Murphy

Jennifer Murphy

Registered Senior Member
Is there any way to enter data in columns, like in a table?

I suppose I could use a monospaced font, like Courier. Is there anything better? Most forums have a table icon.
 
Well, it looks like even a monospaced font won't work. The software strips out multiple blanks.

This is Courier New. The next two lines are identical as I entered them except in the second one, the "."s are replaced by spaces. In the source window, the letters line up.

a.b..c...d....e
a b c d e

As you can see, the second one gets squished.
 
Jennifer Murphy said:
Is there any way to enter data in columns, like in a table?

I suppose I could use a monospaced font, like Courier. Is there anything better? Most forums have a table icon.
Click to expand...

That's a good question I tried the following, but it doesn't seem to work...
Code: 
[table]
[tr]
[th]Name[/th]
[th]Age[/th]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Silvester[/td]
[td]25[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Tom[/td]
[td]65[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Alex[/td]
[td]16[/td]
[/tr]
[/table]
 
I posted a question over on the XenForo forum. They referred me to something like this. Even if it worked, it's still a terrible implementation, IMO. I'd like this forum to switch to something more modern, like vBulletin. It;s far from perfect, but it has support for tables built in as well as buttons for Code and Quotes. XenForo is at least 20 years out of date.

I'd almost be willing to pay for the first year of vBulletin. I'd certainly be willing to contribute $10-$20.
 
Table test:

$$\begin{center}
\begin{tabular}{ c c c }
cell1 & cell2 & cell3 \\
cell4 & cell5 & cell6 \\
cell7 & cell8 & cell9
\end{tabular}
\end{center}
$$


Well that didn't quite work.
 
Last edited:
Columnar data can be created using a CODE block. It's a little tedious, but it can produce a usable result.

I already had the data in another program, Word, properly lined up and these steps worked for me:
  1. In Word
    1. Change the font for all of the data to Courier New. Otherwise, leading spaces will be removed.
    2. Edit the data so that it is lined up in columns the way you want it.
    3. Copy it to the clipboard.
  2. In your post here on SciForums:
    1. Position the cursor where you want the data to go.
    2. Click on the Code entry in the Insert... button dropdown.
    3. Select the entire CODE block, including the tags.
    4. Change to the Courier New font.
    5. Adjust the alignment as needed
Here's an example.
Code: 
     N=2          N=3
   K E(Dups)    K E(Dups)
   1    0       1    0
   2  0.4999    2  0.3332
   5  3.0626    5  2.3952
  10  8.0020   15 12.0069
  20 18.0000   50 47.0000
 
testing with Notepad

Code: 
One    two    three

data    for    test
more    test  stuff
will    it    work

Hey Nice work Jennifer!
 
Thanks. It works, but it's tedious, especially with a lot of data of differing widths.

We'd still be better off switching to vBulletin -- assuming, of course, that Tex would still work.
 
sciforums used to run on vbulletin, as it happens. Then, the powers that be decided to switch.
 
Two notes:

(1) About the second space; it's such a headache that the MLA has actually changed its writing standard. Once upon a time, you were to use two spaces after a period, which also had a visual effect. The arrival of proportional-width fonts rendered the two spaces indistinguishable from one, and HTML is incapable of rendering two spaces, though you can Unicode a wide space, as I recall. In the end, the Modern Languages Association lost its functional standard to the democratic anarchy of sloth; just like words in a dictionary, if enough people latch onto the practice, it eventually becomes the standard.

(2) For short tasks, tag to a monospace font and then tag white around the periods you would use for spaces. That, at least, will work here.​

(font=courier new)Data(color=white).....(/color)Data(color=white).....(/color)Data(/font)​

Thus:​

Data.....Data.....Data
Data.....Data.....Data
Data.....Data.....Data
Data.....Data.....Data
Data.....Data.....Data
Data.....Data.....Data​

(3) vBulletin suffered greatly when Jelsoft underwent some sort of internal collapse that saw a bunch of developers leave; XenForo, the manufacturer of the current software, is the new endeavor for those people. While XF is still tremendously incomplete, and marks a transition point at which bulletin boards will cease being bulletin boards, vBulletin is virtually useless at present, with a bleak prognosis.​
 
Jennifer Murphy said:
Is there any way to enter data in columns, like in a table?

I suppose I could use a monospaced font, like Courier. Is there anything better? Most forums have a table icon.
Click to expand...
yes... X then Y , or any other label you wish.
do not focus on these cesspools. in these fields , you are on the right path.
 
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