Tim Cross <theophil...@gmail.com> writes: > It has also been stated that the Latex exporter won't be a problem as > tabularx (and other Latex packages) will just handle this. Sadly, I > don't think it is that simple. I have used that package a lot over the > years and there have been times I've had to render tables with > multiple columns and rows. While the various latex table like packages > do provide a much better outcome for tables with more complex cell > structure, it is rare that you don't need to do a fair amount of > tweaking to actually get good looking complex tables. Handling a cell > with a couple of lines may be fine, but it is very easy to hit the > limits of what the package can handle without some tweaking. This is > where I think things begin to fall down. My suspicion is that the > amount of work needed to make the Latex exporter handle the majority > of common use cases for this new syntax is much larger and more > complex than it seems and getting this to work reliably and > consistently will be extremely difficult.
tabularx does a fairly acceptable job out of the box on tables whose cells have complex or 'multi-line' content, such as paragraphs. But, naturally, it all depends on the context and scenarios: table, page dimensions, book type and many more factors. The typography, when demanding, is the art of exceptions. And I think this is valid even in such an 'automated' tool like LaTeX (fortunately, LaTeX and TeX are also very ductile, if you know the code well). In any case, I agree that it would not be a good idea to translate the LaTeX tabular environment, with all its nuances, to Org tables. In addition to the fact that Org would be burdened with a unnecessary complexity, is the fact that the syntax of both types of tables differ essentially. Org tables have a more visual character; the tabular environment is a pure "what you see is what you mean". In a tabular environment I see no problem in writing something like this row (ugly, but acceptable) in 3 lines: #+begin_src latex lorem & Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Donec hendrerit tempor tellus. Donec pretium posuere tellus. Proin quam nisl, tincidunt et, mattis eget, convallis nec, purus & ipsum \\ #+end_src But in an Org table I don't see how it could be done without messing up the spirit of its syntax ... that's why I think (IMHO) the least traumatic option, in cases where cells have 'a lot of content', is the possibility of edit cells in a dedicated buffer, like this proof of concept that I did: https://lunotipia.juanmanuelmacias.com/edit-cell-sample-2021-03-19_09.29.17.mp4 And if the table is very complex then I don't see any other option than writing directly the LaTeX code (in case the intended target is only LaTeX/PDF). Best regards, Juan Manuel