Hello everyone!
Suppose I want to create tables in compile; is this possible? I have a pretty strict house style I need to follow. How can it be done?
- Scrivener’s native tables compile to tables in your output format without any work required, but these RTF tables are pretty basic featurewise. These RTF tables are even converted to markdown tables for MMD workflows
… For markdown to DOCX (and possibly ODT?) you should be able to attach wordprocessor table styles to the table using a reference document template. - For more table entry methods you can choose to use markup tables directly, of which there are several markup options.
- List tables are very easy to markup and modify, see GitHub - pandoc-ext/list-table: Write tables as list of cells and rows. for one example filter that can support this. Headers, row attributes and spanning, column widths.
- Other markdown tables styles are often easier to write using something like Markdown Tables generator - TablesGenerator.com – I generate them there then copy and paste and can make small tweaks in Scrivener. For final output using something like HTML or Typst, you can attach quite fancy styling to a structurally simple table.
- If you want very detailed tables or more complex table features, then raw Typst or LaTeX (oe HTML) markup is your best option. The docs for Typst for example are here: Table Function – Typst Documentation — and there are many package that tweak table features: Search — Typst: Universe | LaTeX will be similar, choose a table package and write using that. This route limits you to only use Typst/TeX as the final step so I try to avoid it and stick to markdown tables…
- Another route may be to rethink a table as a diagram, in some cases tables can be expressed using a structured diagram, of which many tools create as text (thus can be used in Scrivener) but render visually after compile, see GitHub - pandoc-ext/diagram: Generate diagrams from embedded code; supports Mermaid, Dot/GraphViz, PlantUML, Asymptote, D2, CeTZ, and TikZ. and tools like mermaid, graphviz, tikz etc.
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Thanks @nontroppo, I’ll look into this!