[Scribus] Importing Tables

[Craig Bradney]

On Thursday 27 October 2005 11:28, Nik wrote:
> Hi Folks,
>
> I have been given a 58 page document in OpenOffice WP format. I am
> trying to control its size and layout, by breaking it into separate
> files for each chapter, image, etc, and then assemble them with scribus
> (scribus-1.2.3-0.1.fc3.rf installed using yum on Fedora Core 3).
>
> Scattered amongst the 58 pages there are 39 tables.
>
> I initially tried to import the tables directly into a scribus table
> frame. This only ever loaded the text of the incoming table into the
> first cell of the scribus table.
>
> Further tests confirmed that it is possible to import an OpenOffice
> table into OpenOffice Draw, export as EPS, and then import the
> PostScript into scribus.
>
> However, after importing the first 3 tables (of 38), scribus has ground
> to a halt processing, a file save takes in the order of minutes, and the
> resulting file is 33 Mbytes in size. This approach clearly isn't going
> to work for this project.
>
> It seems what I really need is for gettext to import tables correctly.
>
> Q1: Has anything changed regarding importing tables since 1.2.3? I've
> poked around in sxwim/contentreader, and I can see nothing new in there.
>
> Q2: Is there some other way of accomplishing this that I've overlooked?
>
> Assuming scribus still doesn't import table text, I am happy to make the
> changes myself, and submit them to the developers for inclusion, as
> people see fit.
>
> Q3: Could someone please point me in the correct direction to see how
> table frames are implemented in scribus? This is something I haven't yet
> discovered.
>
> I am considering two possible implementations, depending on which is
> easier in scribus:
>
> 1. Adding logic to handle importing into a table frame, so that the
> cells are iterated correctly, as the content is read.
>
> 2. Adding logic to generic text importing to create tables and cells if
> table content is encountered. Such an option should have a checkbox in
> the GUI to enable/disable it.
>
> Does anyone out there have any comments, suggestions or guidance to
> offer? I am happy to use the greater experience of others to streamline
> the process, and avoid obvious pitfalls.

Scribus tables are at best experimental. They are useful for various functions 
if you want to play around and you can achieve some decent results. However, 
in the end, they are pretty much simply a group of frames. I would guess you 
could use some logic to traverse the table frame group for import.

TBH, depending on your requirements, if the formatting is complete in OO.org, 
I would export as PDF and import those into image frames and see how that 
goes.

Craig
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