Table

[pauland]

I just get assets from clients in PDF form and they aren't so well behaved when imported to illustrator. They always look right but the text is usually broken into lines or parts of lines.

[tonylondon]

That I can understand. I think there's more to Illustrator-generated PDFs than meets the eye. Perhaps something in both the program and file to aid round-tripping, not included in the official ISO standard. The files that retain their text boxes correctly when imported back into Illustrator have the effects you describe when imported into Xara.

[mwenz]

There is nothing special in AI about opening PDFs from other sources. They are opened typically like Xara opens them.

What there is in a PDF is a private use area. And applications *can* write their own data into it. As far as I know, only Adobe applications can do this. And it is a switch inside of AI to do this and can be turned off (it bloats the file size).

Adobe personnel (like the architect of PDFs, Dov Isaacs) will be the first to tell you that PDFs were never intended to be edited. Never. It is a presentational, fixed and final form document container. But there is no "ISO standard" that specifies the editing of a PDF.

Mike

[Big Frank]

Adobe personnel (like the architect of PDFs, Dov Isaacs) will be the first to tell you that PDFs were never intended to be edited.

i can vouch for that
i have acrobat 9 pro extended
and even with its own program pdfs are a pig to edit
its always better to edit the original document and reconvert to pdf
but i know sometimes this isnt possible
eg i create invoices from sage as pdfs (usind acrobat printer) but then some i have to edit with info that sage cannot generate
i dont enjoy it

[gracehjs]

I had complained about the PDF being broken up in another thread. Interestingly - importing the same PDF into Word and reading the Word file in XDPX9 worked and I got text blocks.

[tonylondon]

There is nothing special in AI about opening PDFs from other sources. They are opened typically like Xara opens them.

What there is in a PDF is a private use area. And applications *can* write their own data into it. As far as I know, only Adobe applications can do this. And it is a switch inside of AI to do this and can be turned off (it bloats the file size).

Adobe personnel (like the architect of PDFs, Dov Isaacs) will be the first to tell you that PDFs were never intended to be edited. Never. It is a presentational, fixed and final form document container. But there is no "ISO standard" that specifies the editing of a PDF.

Mike

What I would have liked to say, but so much better said! Didn't know for sure about the private use area but it did seem likely.

[Acorn]

So, in the end, can someone summarise the approaches to maintaining Tables in Xara?

1. Use MS Excel for data loading and copy CSV data into the Xara Widget.
2. Use MS Excel/Word for data and presentation and copy & paste or export as PDF - effectively maintaining a master file.
3. Use Google Sheet or Docs in a similar fashion.
4. Create your own HTML table with CSS in a Placeholder.
5. IFRAME or jQuery .load() to an external file.
6. Create natively in Xara.
7. Another thematic approach.

Here is my view on Option 1 - Widget:

• CSV fails with quoted text with lots of commas(",,,,") - try Text tool > Alt+Shift+L.
• Once save, all Widget undos are lost so recovering back will require site undos.
• Can be easily broken - 600 Rows to display without adding the rows.
• All of two themes.
• No Xara styles (e.g., transparency fails, fonts fail, sizing fails, effects fail).
• One good gimmick - column header ordering - why no table filtering?
• CONCLUSION - I would build a table with Option 4 instead.

Acorn

[gwpriester]

Tabs. Simple. Easy to edit. Native to Xara. You can make the table as fancy or not as you want.

[tonylondon]

So, in the end, can someone summarise the approaches to maintaining Tables in Xara?
Acorn

I think you've done a pretty good job of summarising yourself!
For me it partly depends on work flow. Large tables, which may have to be reviewed by others and changes incorporated, I'd tend to use Excel for this part of the process.
Then when finalised, copy and paste as RTF into a text area.
Smaller tables I'd create directly into a text area. Have also been experimenting with using one text area per cell. This needs careful planning but is easier to update as changes occur

[Acorn]

Tabs. Simple. Easy to edit. Native to Xara. You can make the table as fancy or not as you want.

Gary, Tabs are not simple:

• Create me a grid.
• Replace any of your text areas with Ctrl+Shift+L ipsum lorem and try to reformat.
• Add a new column for 100 rows.
• Delete a column.
• Double your font size.
• Colour the second column data red.
• Swap two columns' data.

Tabs do not a table make.

The closest I have managed is:

1. Create a box.
2. Colour and add a border.
3. Convert to editable shapes
4. Name it Box.
5. Place a text line inside.
6. Name it Textbox.
7. In the Names gallery, make Textbox 'stretch' Box.
8. You now have a stretchy cell.

With more Xara magic you can group these cells into a row where if one grows down the others follow and the converse.
Stack these rows on top of each other, with use of repel text and you have got a table where each cell can be altered to suit for border, colour, font, size, tab, ...

Not simple, not still a table, but most of a table's features.
If you view a cell as the smallest atomic part then a table mostly follows.

Acorn