Bug 147599

Summary: The text-to-table conversion feature lacks the ability to choose the number of columns
Product: LibreOffice Reporter: nutrientman
Component: WriterAssignee: Not Assigned <libreoffice-bugs>
Status: NEW ---    
Severity: enhancement CC: buzea.bogdan
Priority: medium    
Version: Inherited From OOo   
Hardware: All   
OS: All   
Whiteboard:
Crash report or crash signature: Regression By:
Bug Depends on:    
Bug Blocks: 103100    
Attachments: Word 2016 "Convert Text to Table" dialog

Description nutrientman 2022-02-22 20:41:25 UTC 
Description:
from irc: <jwash> in ms word i can have a text file with one piece of data on a line, then i can specify that my table should be 7 columns wide and word will make the table 7 columns wide, each row starting on the 8th piece of data. is there an equivalent for Libreoffice Writer? 

<mikekaganski> jwash: no; you are welcome to file a request to enhance Table->convert

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Paste the following in a text file:
a
b
c
d
a
b
c
d
a
b
c
d

Actual Results:
a
b
c
d
a
b
c
d
a
b
c
d

Expected Results:
a,b,c,d or a|b|c|d
a,b,c,d or a|b|c|d
a,b,c,d or a|b|c|d
a,b,c,d or a|b|c|d


Reproducible: Always


User Profile Reset: No



Additional Info:
a,b,c,d or a|b|c|d
a,b,c,d or a|b|c|d
a,b,c,d or a|b|c|d
a,b,c,d or a|b|c|d
Comment 1 nutrientman 2022-02-22 20:42:30 UTC 
delimiter should be user defined: \t , | ; etc
Comment 2 Mike Kaganski 2022-03-03 06:33:38 UTC 
Created attachment 178627 [details]
Word 2016 "Convert Text to Table" dialog

(In reply to nutrientman from comment #0)
> Steps to Reproduce:

The original steps are not precise. The proposal is to improve the existing Table->Convert->Text to Table function.

So here are the steps:

1. Paste the text from #1 of comment 0.
2. Select the pasted text, and open menu Table->Convert->Text to Table.
3. Try to use 'Separate Text At'->'Paragraph', or any other setting, to define that the text should be split to *some number of columns* using paragraphs.

In fact, the 'Paragraph' setting makes no difference compared to any other option in the dialog; and the dialog does not provide a way to control resulting number of columns to override automatic conversion.

For comparison, the attachment shows how Word's respective function looks like; and you can directly control the number of resulting columns there.