17

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.

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25

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

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  • 3
    Step 4 is not needed (at least in current emacs v. 26). Pressing C-c ~ as the step 7 converts the table.el table back to editable org table. – Heikki Jan 17 '18 at 7:44
  • 1
    is there an option to speed up step 5, say when I have 500 char of content and I want them wrapped to 10 chars? – user2740 Jan 19 '18 at 12:27
  • 1
    Made a video: youtu.be/Jo4RlPqs0_c – Compro Prasad Aug 6 '18 at 20:27
  • 2
    what is step 4? Is t-r-t shorthand for another command? I've found that when dealing with tables that have text with embedded links, after step 3, only the column headings are selected, and I need a way to select each table cell, as in step 4. However, I don't know what step 4 is actually referring to, since M-x t-r-t shows nothing for me with org-mode 9.1.9 – adamc Nov 14 '18 at 0:50
  • 1
    @kotchwane - I understand your frustration. Other than C-c ', I'm not sure there are any default key bindings in org for table.el. I rarely use table.el because the format lacks many features compared to org-table. For example, AFAIK table.el tables can't be passed to src blocks. Is there a specific reason why you want use table.el besides column wrapping? – Melioratus Jun 4 '20 at 17:08
7

Adjust Column Width with Wrap Around

Here is a solution adapted for org-mode 9.1.13, Spacemacs (0.200.13), emacs 26.1 for convenience.

Starting with the following content at a buffer in org-mode:

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

must leave a NEWLINE on top of the above table to avoid the bug of table.el.

  1. Convert the table to table.el format by C-c ~ +----------+-------------------+ | Verse No | Verse | +----------+-------------------+ | 1 | Line1 Line1 Line1 | +----------+-------------------+ | 2 | Line2 Line2 Line2 | +----------+-------------------+
  2. Directly adjust the column width by SPC u 10 SPC SPC table-narrow-cell +----------+---------+ | Verse No | Verse | +----------+---------+ | 1 | Line1 | | |Line1 | | |Line1 | +----------+---------+ | 2 | Line2 | | |Line2 | | |Line2 | +----------+---------+

It works for my configuration without entering into table.el mode. With my spacemacs, C-u 10 C-c C-c < does not work.

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  • My newer spacemacs setup no longer works with the above solution. But I found that conventing to table.el format, then I can manually adjust the line wrap. After manual editing, then I can convert it back, and get the desired wraps. – Yu Shen Jul 23 '19 at 18:14
  • 1
    SPC u 10 is not required. 10 auto-prefaces it to C-u 10- (Emacs 27.0.50, Spacemacs 9.0.) – Gavin Oct 7 '19 at 15:20
4

Once you follow along the accepted answer and fixed the size of a long column in an existing table, toggling table-fixed-width-mode by M-x table-fixed-width-mode seems to do the trick of automatically wrapping (future) long lines of text in a column in table edit mode. You enter table edit mode by keying C-c '

Tested on: Emacs 25.2.2, Org-Mode 9.1.6

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