This file is best viewed in SimpleText. It contains an exact copy of the help available from within TableText, however in this format it can be viewed separately, or printed.
Introduction
TableText is a program which allows tabular information to be represented, manipulated and scanned as plain text. With it, you can convert spreadsheets and tables to ASCII text with ease.
TableText can be used for email messages, source code comments and cross-platform documentation. It also allows text to be converted back into tabular form, for importing into a spreadsheet, word processor or database.
TableText works similarly to any spreadsheet program, such as AppleWorks or Microsoft Excel. A table contains rows, columns and cells. The widths of columns may be adjusted but row heights are automatically calculated. Each cell's text may be edited individually and aligned left, center, right or justified. Rows and columns may be inserted or deleted.
However, there are some key differences between TableText and spreadsheets. TableText does not allow calculation formulae – if you need to perform some calculations, prepare your table in a spreadsheet then copy it to TableText once the calculations are complete. Furthermore, unlike a spreadsheet, the table does not extend endlessly – rows and columns must be explicitly added.
The main additional difference in TableText is that it uses dividers instead of borders. Since TableText only deals with plain text, there is no possibility of using different colors or thicknesses to separate rows and columns. Instead, dividers may consist of up to 7 characters – TableText has some useful dividers built-in and others may be custom-defined. Where dividers cross, TableText automatically does its best to pick a combination character.
More detailed help on each of TableText's functions is available in the following help sections. We hope you find TableText useful and pay your shareware fee. Please send any comments or suggestions to us at support@sigsoftware.com.
Sig Software
http://www.sigsoftware.com/
Payment and Registration
TableText is freely distributed as trial software. You are permitted to evaluate it for 28 days before discarding it, or purchasing a license. Once a license is purchased, the vertical banner added to outgoing text will disappear.
Licensing
You must purchase one license for each computer on which TableText is used. Licenses can be purchased with the enclosed Register TableText program, using a page on the World Wide Web, or via telephone. Payment may be made by cash, check, VISA, MasterCard or American Express.
Pricing
Current pricing is $20 per license. A bundle with a license for Email Effects ($15 on its own) costs just $30. A bundle with a license for both Email Merge ($30 on its own) and Email Effect costs just $50 (a $15 saving!). See our web site or the enclosed documentation for more information on Email Effects, Email Merge and other Sig Software products. For excellent discounts on volume licensing for any product, please contact us at pricing@sigsoftware.com.
Purchasing online (easiest)
• Click Purchase Online… in the about box or go to http://order.kagi.com/?BX
• Wait for your web browser to load up the page.
• Select how many of which products you wish to purchase.
• Enter your name, address and email address in the areas provided (all are required).
• Please enter any additional comments in the space provided.
• Follow the instructions on the web page to enter your credit-card details.
Purchasing via email
• Click Purchase Alternative… in the about box or run the Register TableText program.
• Enter your name, address and email address in the areas provided (all are required).
• Select how many of which products you wish to purchase.
• Please enter any additional comments by clicking the speech bubble next to the product name.
• Select the VISA, MasterCard or American Express payment method and enter your card details.
• Click the Copy… button to copy out the text for emailing.
• Create a new email message in your email software.
• Choose Paste from the Edit menu.
• Address the message to shareware@kagi.com and send it.
Purchasing over the telephone
• Call (US) 510 658-5244, available 10am to 5pm PST weekdays and at some other times.
• Follow the instructions on the telephone.
• When asked, specify how many, of which products you wish to purchase.
• When asked, state your name, address and email address clearly (all are required).
• Please note that telephone orders carry an additional handling charge of $5.
Purchasing via fax
• Click Purchase Alternative… in the about box or run the Register TableText program.
• Enter your name, address and email address in the areas provided (all are required).
• Select how many of which products you wish to purchase.
• Please enter any additional comments by clicking the speech bubble next to the product name.
• Select the VISA, MasterCard or American Express payment method and enter your card details.
• Click the Print… button to print out the form for faxing.
• Fax the printed form to (US) 510 652-6589.
Purchasing by mail (slowest)
• Click Purchase Alternative… in the about box or run the Register TableText program.
• Enter your name, address and email address in the areas provided (all are required).
• Select how many of which products you wish to purchase.
• Please enter any additional comments by clicking the speech bubble next to the product name.
• Select the Check, Cash, VISA, MasterCard or American Express payment method.
• If you are purchasing by cash, select the currency you wish to pay in.
• If you are purchasing by credit-card, enter your card details.
• Click the Print… button to print out the form to sent with your payment.
• Send to: Kagi, 1442-A Walnut St PMB #392-BX, Berkeley, CA 94709-1405, USA.
After you have purchased
Shortly after your payment has been processed by Kagi, you will automatically receive an email with the subject Thanks for your Payment confirming your purchase. Shortly thereafter you will be emailed your permanent license code or contacted if there is a problem (a human has to check your details before sending a permanent license). If you wish to trace an order, please contact support@sigsoftware.com.
Editing Tables
Navigating a Table
Different parts of a table may be selected at any time. The selection may contain a single cell, multiple cells and dividers, whole rows, whole columns or the entire table. To select a cell or range of cells and dividers, click and drag. To select entire rows or columns, click and drag in the horizontal or vertical rulers. Shift-clicking expands the current selection. To select the entire table, choose Select All from the Edit menu. The selection (but not its contents) can be moved using the arrow keys.
TableText's rulers contain lines to indicate where the boundaries between cells and dividers lie. The number shown over this line is equal to the number of columns or rows contained in the table up to that point. These numbers can help you determine whether the table will fit well into an email message (aim for 76 columns or less) and how many lines it contains.
Editing Cell Contents and Alignment
If a single cell has been selected, it will be highlighted with a rectangular frame, showing that it is ready for editing. To begin editing its contents, either click inside the cell or press the Enter key. Once editing has been completed, click outside the cell or press Enter again. To change the selected cells' alignment, use the Alignment submenu in the Table menu. Note: during editing, cells will always displayed as left-aligned.
Changing Column Widths and Divider Sizes
To change the width of a column, drag the line in the horizontal ruler which represents the column's right edge. To change the size of row or column dividers, drag the line in the ruler which represents the divider's right or bottom edge. TableText will attempt to guess which characters to add or remove but you may need to correct it by setting the divider manually (see next paragraph). If more than one column or row is selected, all the column widths and/or dividers within the selection will be changed together.
Changing Dividers
Apart from resizing dividers by dragging, dividers in the current selection may also be explicitly set using the Row Divider and Column Divider submenus of the Table menu. TableText includes several useful built-in dividers but a custom divider may also be specified using the Custom… item in each submenu. Custom dividers may contain up to 7 characters – for row dividers, the first character is used for the top of the row divider and the last character for the bottom.
Inserting and Deleting Rows and Columns
Insertion and deletion of rows and columns work similarly to a spreadsheet. To insert rows, select the number of rows you wish to insert and choose Insert Cells from the Table menu. The rows will be inserted before the current selection. To insert a row at the end of the table, select the last row divider in the table before choosing Insert Cells. To delete rows, select the rows you wish to delete and choose Delete Cells from the Table menu. For inserting or deleting columns, use a similar process.
Copy and Paste
Clipboard Data Formats
TableText deals with two different types of data on the clipboard. The first is plain text, which can be copied from and pasted into almost any other Macintosh application. The second is its own private table format, which only TableText understands. The second format is required so that TableText is able to store information in the clipboard, such as cell alignment and dividers, that would otherwise be lost in plain text.
Copying
When copying the selection, TableText places both the above data types on the clipboard. However, the nature of the text data will depend on which option is selected in the Copy As submenu of the Edit menu. If Grid Text is selected, the text placed on the clipboard will be in its final, formatted form, including dividers, spacing and alignment. This should be used when copying the text for pasting into any text-only document. If Tabbed Text is selected, the text placed will be in tab-delimited format, which will retain the tabular structure of the text but will lose all other formatting. This should be used when copying the text for pasting into a spreadsheet or word processor table.
Pasting
When pasting from the clipboard, TableText first searches for its private table format – if that is not found, it searches for text on the clipboard. Text containing any tab characters is assumed to be in tab-delimited format – other text is automatically converted into a table, complete with dividers, column widths and cell alignment. Although the text scanning algorithm is fairly intelligent, it is impossible to guarantee that the results will be as desired since there may be ambiguities about how to interpret certain areas. If entire rows or columns are selected when pasting, dividers and columns widths will be replaced by those on the clipboard – otherwise, the table's dividers and column widths will remain unchanged.
Files and Email
Saving Tables
When you choose Save or Save As… from the File menu, TableText creates a file containing all information on the table, including column widths, dividers and cell alignment. This file's format is private to TableText and it cannot be read by any other program.
Importing Text
TableText can open any text file, creating a new Untitled document. Files containing any tab characters are assumed to be in tab-delimited format. Otherwise, text is automatically converted into a table, complete with dividers, column widths and cell alignment. Although the text scanning algorithm is fairly intelligent, it is impossible to guarantee that the results will be as desired since there may be ambiguities about how to interpret certain areas.
Direct to Email
TableText can automatically create a new email message containing a table in Microsoft Outlook Express, Microsoft Entourage, Qualcomm Eudora, Claris Emailer, Bare Bones Mailsmith, CTM Development PowerMail or CE Software QuickMail. To do so, choose To Email from the Table menu, ensuring you have specified which email program to use in the Preferences. Some extra text will automatically be added before the table's text to indicate to email recipients that it should be viewed in a fixed-width font – this text can be edited in the Preferences.
Preferences
TableText's preferences may be edited by choosing Preferences… from the Edit menu. A description of each setting follows:
Display Settings
This group of settings controls how tables are displayed within TableText:
• Font and Size. These set how the table's text should be displayed. Only fixed-width fonts (where each character is exactly the same width) can be used. It is recommended to set the font and size to the same as your email program.
• Gridlines. This sets whether light gray lines should be displayed between cells and dividers.
• Shaded Dividers. This sets whether divider rows and columns should be shaded in very light gray.
Defaults for New Document
This group of settings determines the characteristics of new tables, rows, columns and cells:
• Rows and Columns. These set the number of rows and columns that newly-created tables should contain.
• Column Width. This sets the width, in number of characters, of newly-created columns and columns in newly-created tables.
• Alignment. This sets the alignment of cells in newly-created rows, columns or tables.
• Row Divider and Col Divider. This sets which divider should be used for newly-created rows or columns and those in newly-created tables.
Other
• Use Navigation Services if Available. This controls whether files should be chosen using Apple’s Navigation Services (included in Mac OS 8.5 but available for OS 7.5.5 or later). Navigation Services have been known to cause problems with some setups, so switch this setting off if you are experiencing any.
• Use Email Client. This sets which email program to use with TableText's direct-to-email feature.
• Message Prefix. This sets which text, if any, to add before tables' text when using the direct-to-email feature.
• Allow all Dividers. This sets whether any character has the potential to become part of a divider when scanning text. If this setting is off, only spaces or one of the following can become part of a divider: - | + # : ! X / \ * = _ . ~
• Maximum spaces in a divider. The most common source of ambiguity when scanning text is whether blank space should be interpreted as part of a divider or as space within a cell. This setting allows you to specify the maximum number of contiguous spaces that should be interpreted as part of a row or column divider. If more than this number of spaces are found, the spaces will be included within a cell. You may want to experiment with different values – a value of zero indicates that spaces should never be interpreted as part of a divider.
Any distribution of TableText must include this file. No responsibility about TableText's functionality or integrity is implied. This document and TableText are copyright of the author. Other trademarks are copyright of their respective owners.
