Affinity Publisher – Insert tab separated data into a table is not working

[Babelfisch]

I try to insert text from a text file with tab separated content into a Publisher table. Every column is separated with a tab character.

The expected result is that Publisher spreads the text into the cells.

The current result is that Publisher pastes the complete text into the first cell.

The content of the text file:

Prepare for pasting the text:

Text pasted:

Hope it can fixed in near future.

[Hangman]

Hi @Babelfisch,

This is working here...

Could you upload your Text File so we can take a look...

[Babelfisch]

Here is a simple text file.

tab_bug_test.txt

[Babelfisch]

… open it in a plain text editor of your choice (like CotEditor). Copy the text and past it into the Publisher table. It doesn't work.

[Hangman]

2 minutes ago, Babelfisch said:

… open it in a plain text editor of your choice (like CotEditor). Copy the text and past it into the Publisher table. It doesn't work.

Agreed, despite the tabs it appears the text has to be Rich Text to paste correctly across table cells...

I'm slightly unsure of the expected behaviour and whether this would be considered a bug or a feature request... Hopefully, someone from the moderation team at Serif can clarify...

[Old Bruce]

10 hours ago, Hangman said:

Agreed, despite the tabs it appears the text has to be Rich Text to paste correctly across table cells...

If I copy the text, from a text editor, and paste it into a Text Frame in Publisher and then copy that text it will paste correctly into Publisher. If I Place the text file into a text frame in Publisher and then copy and paste it into a Table it will work.

Weird little bug.

[PMan]

30 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

If I copy the text, from a text editor, and paste it into a Text Frame in Publisher and then copy that text it will paste correctly into Publisher. If I Place the text file into a text frame in Publisher and then copy and paste it into a Table it will work.

Weird little bug.

I tried what Old Bruce said and it didn't work until I removed the tabs in the text frame and then retyped them (in Publisher text frame). I then typed the entries separated by tabs in a word processor and saved it in Rich Text Format (RTF).  Then the entry would work, confirming what Hangman said.  I also simply copied and pasted from a word processor and that worked too. Bear in mind that if your table is, say, 4 columns wide and your text entry is 8 entries separated by tabs, then when you past that the table will expand to 8 columns to accommodate the entries.  To ensure that the table will only be [for example ] 4 columns wide then you would need to press <Enter> after every fourth entry.

1    2    3    4    5    6    7    8 will result in table which was 4 columns expanding to 8 columns 

but

1    2    3    4
5    6    7    8 will result in table of 2 rows of 4 columns

 

Asus Vivobook 15  Intel I7 processor,  Intel Iris X graphics, Windows 10 Home Version 20H2 (64 bit),  32GB RAM.
Affinity Designer2 V2.5.5, Photo2 V2.5.5,  Publisher2 V2.5.5
Affinity Designer2 Beta V2.5.5.2636, Photo Beta 2.5.5.2636, Publisher V2.5.5.2636
Affinity Designer 1.10.5.1342, Photo 1.10.5.1342, Publisher 1.10.5.1342 
Affinity Designer Beta 1.10.5.1342, Photo Beta  1.10.5.1342, Publisher  Beta  1.10.5.1342

[Meliora spero]

12 hours ago, Babelfisch said:

I try to insert text from a text file with tab separated content into a Publisher table. Every column is separated with a tab character.

The expected result is that Publisher spreads the text into the cells.

The current result is that Publisher pastes the complete text into the first cell.

The content of the text file:

Prepare for pasting the text:

Text pasted:

Hope it can fixed in near future.

When I struggled with this I found that copying it into Numbers and then into Publisher did the trick. Beware of formating issues, though.

There is some kind of pattern in Serif's work that gave me the theory that their implementations rely unusually heavily on system components (they obviously can't create clever algorithms themselves), so using a macOS/Apple product as an intermediary was a natural thing for me to try, and bingo, Numbers copies data in the format Publisher expects.

[NathanC]

Hi @Babelfisch,

I've logged this with the developers, thanks for your report!

[OzNate]

On Windows I have found that copying and pasting from Word has the same result if the cursor is in the first table cell, but if I select the whole first row it pasts properly. That will not be obvious to users as the behaviour is different in Word and Excel, etc.

[yukonPete]

As OzNate says, select a few cells/rows and then paste. If just cursor in a cell, it doesn't work as you'd like.

 

FYI, I learned this in alphabetizing TOC entries.

- Generate TOC, select all and cut.

-Use the table tool to generate a table with correct columns (for me, it's the entry and page #).

- Select a couple of rows and paste.

- Sort the entry column alphabetically, then select both columns; cut the text.

- Delete the table and paste the sorted TOC entries back into the original TOC text frame. This process keeps the Hyperlinks too.

[Evaluation complete.]

Here, too, we have - like style mapping during import - some critical functionality that needs to work, not just if you know the one method Affinity can handle, but in general, in ways customers will expect. It’s exactly this kind of thing that the customer segment Canva dreams of encroaching on MUST have working.

This has received a red mark in my evaluation form. It needs further development.