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Importing tables from other programs (eg MS excel), formatting and combining with text is a big headache

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  • 2 have this problem
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  • Last reply by Zenos

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I am trying to copy paste an excel table into thunderbird. It comes as loose text and not as table. Also the that you have provided is difficult to format. I cannot copy paste values from excel table to your table. Continuing email after table is not possible.

Please look ito it

I am trying to copy paste an excel table into thunderbird. It comes as loose text and not as table. Also the that you have provided is difficult to format. I cannot copy paste values from excel table to your table. Continuing email after table is not possible. Please look ito it

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I was surprised to read your posting, because I occasionally do need to email data that was assembled in a spreadsheet and I didn't recall any issues. So I have copied-and-pasted from a simple spreadsheet and it worked fine, presented as a Thunderbird table, which, clunky as it is, at least preserves the structure.

A second attempt failed. What seemed to break it was that this second table had some merged cells, i.e. a header cell that straddles two ordinary columns.

I don't think that Thunderbird's tables have any concept (let alone support!) for merged cells. Are you able to avoid using these?

As to inserting before or after - I have had this same problem in many different contexts, most painfully, Word. I have learned, the hard way, to insert three blank lines, then paste the insertion on the second of those three lines. Then I have a blank line above and below the new item so I can shoehorn in any new text.

In Thunderbird, I use the Stationery add-on which adds a useful HTML source editor. So if I lose my way, I can switch to HTML source view and put my cursor at an appropriate insertion point for new text.

Modified by Zenos