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I am using spacemacs. I've written my shortcuts in an org file to not forget them. It has a structure of Description: key, then I go to the next line and enter the next command. For example

*** Latex

Preview at point: SPC m p p
Jump to begin or the end of the environment: %
Use macro: C-c RET
Create environment: C-c C-e or SPC m e

It occured to me, that using an org-table for this would fit quite nicely. By now I have quite some headings with corresponding shortcuts. Is there an elegant fast way to convert my records under a certain heading/tree in an org-table format, so that the text before ":" goes into a first column of a table and the text after ":" in a second column with one table row dedicated for each entry pair? Some custom function defined via defun?

4 Answers 4

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For the :, a simple M-x query-replace will quickly get you the | between the two columns. For the | at the beginning and end, M-x query-replace-regexp should do:

  • replace ^ with | for the beginning of the line
  • replace $ with | for the end of the line

Once you've got all the | inserted, pressing tab anywhere in the table will line up all the columns.

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  • From *** Latex in the question I concluded that he has several subsections with major modes in his subtree. Therefore, I suggested an alternative approach treating all key descriptions in the subtree at once. (Not only the ones for one major-mode.)
    – Tobias
    Oct 18, 2019 at 16:33
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The following approach works for the full subtree describing the key-bindings for all major-modes at once (if the structure of your document is really as you indicated in the question):

  1. narrow to the subtree in question: C-x n s

  2. Type C-<home> to go to the beginning of buffer.

  3. query replace with M-C-% ^\([[:alnum:] ]+\):\( .*\)$ RET |\1|\2| RET.

In the 2nd item I assume that your descriptions only contain alphanumeric characters and spaces.

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  • I like the approach with regexp exchange, as I understand, you divide into 1 group until : and second group after : by using curvy braces. Unfortunately this command doesn't find anything to replace, maybe the first expression is not correct?
    – Rareform
    Oct 21, 2019 at 16:00
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I often use (C-c |) to convert tab separated areas, so you could perhaps simply replace the colon character with a tab and use that.

Or wrap some elisp around (org-table-convert-region BEG0 END0 &optional SEPARATOR)

Initially I wondered if what you really want is to use the powerful (and I mean to learn this for myself still) Emacs Org's Column View, org-columns(C-c C-x C-c). But having read it again I see that is not appropriate at all to this need.

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  • Not what I asked for, still a nice command to discover though.
    – Rareform
    Oct 21, 2019 at 16:00
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Ok, I discovered an alternative efficient way for me. I just used M-x query-replace (M-x %) to replace all : (colons) by , (comma). Afterwards I could apply the convertion command C-c | to retain the structure I had. The answer of allsOrts answers it partially, but doesn't mention the trick, that comma can be used for separation to get the 2 columns structure in this case (I am not sure what is meant under replacing colon with a tab).

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