Wrap cell content in an org mode table

Question

I have a table like this:

| Verse No | Verse      |
|          | <10>       |
|        1 | line1 li=> |
|        2 | line2 li=> |

I would like to view it as

| Verse No | Verse      |
|          | <10>       |
|        1 | line1 line |
|          | 1 line1    |
|        2 | line2 line |
|          | 2 line2    |

I am aware of C-c ` but that's not enough, I want to see all text simultaneously. Read only is OK if need be.

Answer 1

org-mode has 2 table formats, the default org-table and the other is table.el.

Cell wrapping is available for tables in table.el format.

Try this

1. Remove the extra row with <10> so your table will look similar to the example below:

   | Verse No | Verse             |
   |        1 | Line1 Line1 Line1 |
   |        2 | Line2 Line2 Line2 |
   

   Tip: Add a blank line above and below the table. The blank lines should prevent a bug when converting the table with C-c ~. Thanks to @ComproPrasad for troubleshooting and providing the workaround.

2. Place your cursor, a.k.a the point, inside updated table then type C-c ~ and answer y. The updated table should look similar to example below:

   +----------+-------------------+
   | Verse No | Verse             |
   +----------+-------------------+
   |        1 | Line1 Line1 Line1 |
   +----------+-------------------+
   |        2 | Line2 Line2 Line2 |
   +----------+-------------------+
   

3. Place your cursor inside updated table then type C-c ' and a new window or frame will appear.

4. Type M-x t-r-t and each table cell should be highlighted.

5. Place your cursor inside second column and type C-c C-c < until the column is the desired width.

   Tip: Use the universal argument key binding C-u to quickly repeat this step. For example, If your cell is 500 characters and you want to adjust the width to 10 characters do C-u 490 C-c C-c < which will repeat C-c C-c < command 490 times.

6. Type C-c ' to finish editing table. These steps should leave you with a similar to the example below:

   +----------+------+
   | Verse No | Verse|
   +----------+------+
   |        1 |Line1 |
   |          |Line1 |
   |          |Line1 |
   +----------+------+
   |        2 |Line2 |
   |          |Line2 |
   |          |Line2 |
   +----------+------+
   

Thanks for asking your question!
Hope that helped!

---

This answer tested using:
emacs version: GNU Emacs 25.2.1 (x86_64-unknown-cygwin, GTK+ Version 3.22.10)
org version: Org mode version 9.1.2