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Tables Just don't Work

Juncus

Asked by Juncus,

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Juncus

Juncus 3

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If I post a table from the toolbar I cannot easily add text. The behaviour is not consistant. A cursor never appears in any cell. If I accidentally select more than one cell and type the others are deleted.

 

I tried pasting in a table from excel and the problems are similar. The text in pre populated cells appears but adding text is not in the same cell structure.

 

I see no way to use tables and I'm surprised that they are allowed to be used if they appear to be pointless and unsupported. Can anyone explain what rules if any these table use rather than the ones accepted in the known universe. Please.

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CalS

CalS 5,280

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@rockyp,

 

Weird, seems to work for me.  Have you tried changing the size of the note window, or viewing in Snippet view to see if the 2 columns appear? 

 

Every table I create force fits even width columns across the available space (even if I select 50% in options, which is definitely a bug).  But no matter what I do, i see the number of columns spread evenly.

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Suet

Suet 0

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Well, there are a mix of feelings here, I can see.  Personally I am really fed-up with this latest version.  This evening, I opened a note that I started to write yesterday and found that my nice bullet list had developed a huge gap between the bullet and the text --- if I hit the delete button to get rid of spaces, the text all bunches up together and hey-presto ---- I have yet another unusable table instead of a bullet list, where did that come from !!!

 

So, I now have a work-around, I cut from Evernote, paste into MS Word, sort the formatting and then paste it back.  Tedious I know, but I am a pedant for layout

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Juncus

Juncus 3

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I found a solution to this myself. I stopped using EN. It's a pointless piece of software if that which it offers is a lie. I have been very happy switching to another product which actually works as described. I no longer get sync queries where I have to decide which was being edited last. No more table issues and no more font changes on every paragraph edited on other platforms. So basically like EN but acutally works.

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rct

rct 3

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I posted this in a different thread because it was the top table thread at the time. - https://discussion.evernote.com/topic/88448-table-editing-is-broken/

 

The latest evernote for windows 5.9.1. - Can no longer edit existing tables without breaking them.    Any edit splits the table into two, with broken rows with the wrong number of columns.  Worse, there doesn't seem to be any way to fix it.  Once i clicked to another note and back to see if it was just a display problem, the undo history was lost.

 

Tables were buggy before but unusable now.  This was a regular table created in evernote, not an excel copy-n-paste.

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dvgibson

dvgibson 11

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I'm not having that much trouble with them, not as much as others but am not happy either. I went to them to get some sort of control over layout since Evernote's layout is so limited. I sometimes need to put text alongside a photo, that works, but there is no telling from the screen how big the image will be on another device or when printed. So far it's working across all platforms I use, which is most everything except Apple. 

 

I wish there was some control over vertical placement. Some platforms it centers, others it top justifies. 

 

Evernote really needs a way to resize images by dynamically and by editing. 

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ckmotorka

ckmotorka 0

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If I drag a table to Evernote it just makes a link to the table. So I paste thecontents into the note. Fine. But if I update the table and wish to replace the pasted table, I can't, unless I go row by row-which is beyond worthless. I end up deleting the note and making a whole new one so that I can paste the reference copy into the note. I hate this to no end. How can you not make this work? Especially after years of complaints.

And for the record, the editor for these comments is also very bad.

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gazumped

gazumped 11,656

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If you're making a table in Word or Excel (or equivalents) why not attach the source file to the note and open that file to view or edit the table?  Current table editing is still pretty basic,  though believe it or not it has gotten better than it was.  And if you have a big table in a note,  how about copy any essential text + new table into a new note and deleting the old one to get rid of the original table?

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JanZh

JanZh 0

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It's been two years and you guys don't seem to have figure out how to handle tables yet...

Deleting rows, copying rows both behave very inconsistently. You can't copy row data since all the column/row data just gets shoved into a single cell.

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Austin G

Austin G 527

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Updates to table are in the works!  Try Format>Simplify formatting to Fix formatting issues you see with tables created on  previous editor versions. I recommend duplicating the note first so that you still have the original note copy in case the simplify formatting function strips away necessary formatting. 

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gazumped

gazumped 11,656

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1 hour ago, Austin G said:

Updates to tables are now in the Windows 6.6. beta 1. 

Been there,  got that.  Tables work well!  (So far...)  It's almost like having an active Excel section in the note!  It's been a bit of a wait,  but it seems well worth it.  Thanks for the headsup.  :D

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gazumped

gazumped 11,656

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1 hour ago, chad.nuesmeyer said:

I am still having problems in windows version 6.11.2.7027... My tables begin nice and great to edit. Then it freezes up and won't let me edit any of the column widths.

Can you give us an example of how complex a table you're using?  Tables generally seem to work fine for me,  but I use them more for layout and picture size than detailed record keeping...

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gazumped

gazumped 11,656

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Hi.  Tables in Evernote are... erratic at best.  There was talk that the editor might be in process of being rewritten,  but it's been pants (technical term) for a long while.  Best advice in Windows - attach a spreadsheet for the 'real' table layout,  and (if you're not a premium or business user) copy/ paste the content into your note purely for the indexing purposes.  Premium and Business users get their spreadsheet attachments indexed,  so it might be worth upgrading if this is a main use.

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Juncus

Juncus 3

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Thanks gazumped. Shame to make themselves look bad by including something that doesn't work. I fear paying for something that still doesn't work and would be inconvenient at best in a multi-platform setting as I am, would seem like masochism. Best keep looking for a real app then I guess.

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FactMan

FactMan 196

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I just got notified of a new beta release - there is the ability to resize/shape tables by dragging and dropping the borders - not perfect, but a step in the right direction.

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Juncus

Juncus 3

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Thanks for that too FactMan but it's not really a help as I can't get text into the cells of a table. Rows do not align with the columns above when you paste tables in so there is no point in adjusting something that is not working in the first place. Sure I'll have a look but it's safer to assume that actually puting text into the cells has not been fixed which after all seems to be just a bit fundamental.

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gazumped

gazumped 11,656

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If you really want to have usable tables,  there are some HTML tricks that might help - Column widths forinstance tend to change to accommodate the longest entry - so you can set a column width by typing a deliberately long entry in one box...  and then set some or all of the text colour to white (or whatever the background is) so you force the table to show |this text                              | even though actual entry is 'this text is just to save the width'.

 

-And to get text into a table,  try creating the basic layout,  with coloured lines and backgrounds in Excel and pasting it into Evernote.  You should be able to add text from there...

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JMichaelTX

JMichaelTX 4,117

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I tried pasting in a table from excel and the problems are similar. The text in pre populated cells appears but adding text is not in the same cell structure.

 

I see no way to use tables and I'm surprised that they are allowed to be used if they appear to be pointless and unsupported. Can anyone explain what rules if any these table use rather than the ones accepted in the known universe. Please.

 

I have found that the best way to create tables in Evernote is to actually create the table in MS Word, then copy/paste the table into Evernote.  For Excel, copy the selected cells to Word, format as needed, then copy/paste the table into Evernote.

 

I find the tables pasted from Word are much more usable than the native EN tables.

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Juncus

Juncus 3

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I have tried posting a graphic here to explain what I see but alas I cannot since it has to be in my media library which I don't seem to have.

I really thought JMichael had cracked for me but it was the same except the formatting was a litte better.

 

The table [cells and shading] are offset to the right of the text already provided. Any text I do type in also appears on the left. So cells on the right and text on the left with overlap in the middle.

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Holmes245

Holmes245 11

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If I post a table from the toolbar I cannot easily add text. The behaviour is not consistant. A cursor never appears in any cell. If I accidentally select more than one cell and type the others are deleted.

 

I tried pasting in a table from excel and the problems are similar. The text in pre populated cells appears but adding text is not in the same cell structure.

 

I see no way to use tables and I'm surprised that they are allowed to be used if they appear to be pointless and unsupported. Can anyone explain what rules if any these table use rather than the ones accepted in the known universe. Please.

 

I just gave up on what was supposed to be a simple table in Evernote myself a few minutes ago. EverNote has always been a glorified web clipper app, not a "note taking" app and the fact that it can't do RTF real well or tables is proof of that, sad to say.

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CalS

CalS 5,280

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I think if you define a simple table as text based rows and columns with not a lot of formatting capabilities, EN does okay.  It works well for me for things like phone logs for example.  But if you want sophisticated formatting or the ability to insert non-text objects, not so much.  That being said, the simple is a workable solution for my use case, not for all though.

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rockyp

rockyp 0

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EN 5.9.1.8742, the latest according to "Check for updates". Windows 10...

 

I can't create a usable table in EN. I ask for 2 columns, 8 rows, and I get a single column wider than the window. Only way I could find to delete the table was row-by-row.

 

So I created the table in MS Word, added some text to all the cells, copy/pasted into EN. I can't copy paste text into any cell. I can't go to a new line because the enter key doesn't take. I tried Ctl-Enter and Shift-Enter - no luck. I can type into a cell, but delete and backspace keys do not work.

 

Tables are BADLY broken!!

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mmmore

mmmore 6

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Since the release of 5.90 tables work allot better. And I mean allot!!! Still improvements can be made, but being able to do simple resizing of colums is really nice. 

 

Formatting of tables I still do in Word. Then copy the table to EN. It's not ideal, but it works. 

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Brixton Banner

Brixton Banner 7

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The latest update in the windows client is nice

I agree with mmmore that the ability to resize is great

unfortunately I have had to re do all my previously created notes containing tables.

I had a series of notes with two column  tables to fill in each job I do but I discovered that if I try to copy and paste into a, right column, cell it put the text I was moving into either the row below or outside the table.

Similarly if I just tried to type something new in the right column of the table

Irksome

But now I've re done using tables in evernote them I cannot change the borders but at least the typing in works

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Suet

Suet 0

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I installed v. 5.9.1.8742 a couple of days ago ..... since then the tables that I copy n paste into Evernote look far less like the originals than they did before.  I have battled with one containing three columns with a maximum text length in each of 20 characters, the copied table in Evernote spreads the table across two widths of the screen!  What's going on, did we take a backwards step here???

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Double 

Double  2

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I recently updated Evernote, and the update seems to have broken functionality of my existing tables. I want to create a table inside a table, but the 'Table' and 'Horizontal Rule' buttons are not clickable for me.. not even through the toolbar. No longer allows something as simple as a backspace either. As it is now, the buttons only work on tables created after the update. 

 

I've probably got over 50 tables worth of information, I do not want to create new tables for existing data just because Evernote decides it wants to update. Prime example of an update breaking s***. Please Evernote, make the old tables compatible in a new update.

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Pezalinski

Pezalinski 0

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I will concur with the general consensus that tables in Evermore are not well supported, and that the last update broke much of what the users had had working... Tables were 'unsupported' but semi-functional, we found workarounds, now those workarounds fail and we cannot find reasonable workarounds for the latest version that supports 'tables'. The biggest issue is with inserts via copy cut paste, and edge sensitivity for the tables copied in. Not happy.

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