So frustrated with alignment issues in DP365

[peterouviere]

So, doing a business plan and since there is no proper table tool for importing excel data, I am drawing boxes and creating a table to input the data. I have all the boxes aligned in DP365 and when I export to PDF it goes all wonky and the cells are no longer in alignment. SO frustrated and not sure if I should just go to Adobe In-Design and do the business plan there instead. Anyone have any suggestions? Thanks in advance.

[mwenz]

Print to pdf? Have you tried exporting to pdf?

Personally I wouldn't use ID or any other layout application for this. I would be more likely to use LibreOffice Writer for something like this.

[peterouviere]

I meant export to pdf not print, sorry.

[Boy]

Perhaps I'm not fully understanding your issue but why not do it all in Excel and then export it to .pdf? Or import a simple Excel table into a layer in XDP, lock the layer, add some eye candy on other layers, and then export it to .pdf.

[PhilM]

I think the rectangle coordinates stored in the PDF file are all aligned correctly and what you are seeing is Acrobat Reader rounding coordinates to whole numbers of pixels when it is rendering the rectangles.

Sometimes it will round up, sometimes round down, and that's why you see pixel differences in the gaps.

If you zoom in you should see the gaps become more consistent. There may be some settings you can change in Acrobat's Preferences to prevent this pixel rounding.

Phil

[peterouviere]

Perhaps I'm not fully understanding your issue but why not do it all in Excel and then export it to .pdf? Or import a simple Excel table into a layer in XDP, lock the layer, add some eye candy on other layers, and then export it to .pdf.

I am making a business plan with graphics, tables, charts, and text. It impossible to make it in Excel. Imagine it is like making a brochure for a business, or a business advertisement foldout. This is a 40 page professional book. Since you can not make or import a spreed sheet in Xara or create a proper column and row table for a document in Xara, The only way I found searching the forums is to make a table using rectangles.

[Boy]

Since you can not make or import a spreed sheet in Xara or create a proper column and row table for a document in Xara, The only way I found searching the forums is to make a table using rectangles.

Hence my surprise. You can import an Excel spreadsheet into Xara by copying it it from Excel (select the spreadsheet and Ctrl+C) and paste it as an enhanced metafile into your Xara document. Before you reposition it, soft group it (Arrange/Apply Soft Group) so it will be one object.

[Albacore]

You also can use in most DTP, including Publisher, and vector packages using the same method as "Boy" suggested in post#7 (Ctrl+C). If you have ID and Excel then you can "Place" the file in your ID doc but the import window when it opens must be formatted correctly using the dialogue window. Depending on the type of Excel file you may find that format again goes wonky. Cant remember which one goes wonky think it is the .xls that does this and the .xlsx imports correctly. I have used ID for this many times in the past but it has been about 7 years since the last time. The reason I have suggested using ID instead of Xara id the fact that it is a huge problem if you want to edit it as all cell consist of 4 individual lines with the text in the middle. If you use Publisher you can link the spreadsheet file to the Publisher doc. so if you change the value in one it should update the other. You can do the same in ID as well I think.