When copying a table from a spreadsheet, the formatting in the post is often "not good".
For some tables, use of the "Insert Code" button (the
# icon in the message toolbar) is sufficient.
For other tables (e.g. budget discussions), even the Code approach can be lacking.
If you want something that looks better (and functions better if one wants to copy from the post and paste in a spreadsheet), the approach below will work:
1. Create table in Excel. Select and Copy.
2. Go to
TABLEIZER!. Right Click in the large box and Paste.
3. Click the Tableize It! button
4. Click in the box under "Copy the HTML code below:"
5. Right Click and Copy
6. Open Notepad and Paste
7. Do the following edits
- Delete the lines from the top through the </style><table class="tableizer-table"> line
- Insert a line at the top (w/o quotes): "["table"]"
- Delete ‘ class=”tableizer-firstrow”’ (this should leave <tr> as the first four characters on the line)
- Replace all occurrences "h>" with "d]" (Ctrl+H brings up the Replace menu in Notepad)
- Replace all "<" with "["
- Replace all ">" with "]"
- Replace all " " with "" (in other words, delete all occurrences of " ")
8. Select all and Copy
9. Go to the MMM forum post window where you are typing your entry and Paste. It keeps all entries in the same columns they occupy in the original spreadsheet.
Looks complicated at first glance, but it took more time to type the steps above than it takes to do them.
"It would be nice if" the TABLEIZER web site (or some other) provided output compatible with Simple Machines (the hosting engine for this forum) table formatting. Tough to complain, however. about a free web site (TABLEIZER) that does a good job already (note: it's just something I found - I have nothing to do with it). Similarly "it would be nice if" Simple Machines would accept html-style table commands, but again this forum does work well already.
One last caveat: if you have < or > in your Excel table, those will be converted to [ or ] using the steps above.
Others have found ways to make their tables more legible. Don't know what the "best" way is but would be interested in opinions.
P.S. Moderators, if there is a better place for this, please move it.