We survey table creation in several popular document authoring programs and identify usability bottlenecks and inconsistencies between several of them. We draw attention to the fact that authoring tables is still difficult and can be a frustrating and error prone exercise and that the development of high-quality table tools should be further pursued. http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1860559.1860602

1. Table Layout Performance of
Document Authoring Tools
Patrick Healy
CSIS Department
University of Limerick
Limerick, Ireland
patrick.healy@ul.ie
Mihai Bilauca
CSIS Department
University of Limerick
Limerick, Ireland
mihai@bilauca.net
Why authoring tables is still difficult and can be a frustrating and error prone exercise?
A survey of table creation in several popular document authoring programs
SAMPLE TABLES
Figure 1: An illustration of Table 3.4-b from the A-7E Documentation.
Figure 2: A stack of limited range and depth
DOCUMENT AUTHORING TOOLS PERFORMANCE
Figure 3: Rotated content in Word is
misplaced.To correct this effect each
column must be resized.Resizing only
the second column is not possible.
Figure 4: FrameMaker 7.0 misplaces
rotated equations.
Conclusions
Summary of table formatting features
Feature
Figure 5: Borders in Word are aligned
differently even for the same cell
FrameMaker
7.0
iWorks
Pages 3.02
HTML/ CSS
Resizing
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Rotate
Yes
Yes
No
No
No
Pading & Margins
Yes
No
No
Yes
Tricks req.*
Borders
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Auto-layout
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Inner tables
Yes
No
No
Yes
No**
Equations
Yes
Yes
No
Plugin req.***
Yes
Split vertically
No
No
No
Print only
No
?
The information cannot be easily transferred between table editing
Split Horizontally
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Grouping of rows/cols
No
Yes
No
Yes
No
tools. All the effort deployed in authoring tables using a tool is lost if
another tool is used;
Templates
Yes
Yes
No
CSS only
Macros req.
Table Header
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
Table Footer
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
Column Header
No
No
Yes
No
No
Caption
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Caption position
No
No
No
Yes
No
Table Summary
No
No
No
Yes
No
* Adjust the cell’s height
** Using additional packages
*** Only FireFox can natively render equations defined in MathML
DocEng2010, September 21– 24, 2010, Manchester, United Kingdom.
TeX/
LaTeX
?
Table editing is hard, time consuming, and error prone. Basic
MsWord
2003/2007
operations such as resizing cells are difficult using even popular
packages;
?
Unlike other fields, where there are agreed collections of test data,
for table layout there is no library of tables that could be used to
evaluate table editors or other algorithms;
? no agreed standards on how to solve technical problems
There are
such as border conflict resolution;
?
Large tables cannot be split vertically across pages. None of the
surveyed tools cater for this option;
?
Visual indicators and grouping rows and columns are important in
large tables. They eliminate the need of using physical guidance tools
to follow data in large rows/columns;
? essential when authoring tables and the development of
Tools are
high-quality table tools should be further pursued.