Reply #28: Easy in theory, difficult in execution [View All]

[Dogmudgeon]

(I'll be using regular XML angle brackets for illustration instead of the square braces that DU's tags require.)

First, of course, you have to specify a monospace font face.

<font face="Courier,Andale Mono,Courier New">
The table goes here
</font>

The table data is arranged using spaces to tweak the positions of the text.

Then, convert all groups of spaces to middle dots, ASCII #183. You can use any non-space character, but people are familiar with the dots from years of seeing them on word processing screens. You can NOT use spaces. DU's coding condenses multiple spaces and tabs into single spaces. And proportional fonts can't be hand-tweaked accurately.

I replace ALL spaces with dots, then restore the single spaces where they normally occur between words. IOW, the dots are for format and spaces are for reading. If you select/highlight the table in that post, you will see how the dots are used.

The dots are made "invisible" by this tag:

<font color=white>············</font>
<font color=white>This will be invisible</font>

Select the text here:
Start ==> This is now invisible·········and so is this <== End

A set of tags is used for every chunk of whitespace. There are a LOT of them, and the result is difficult to read, so I do the nasty stuff after I've edited everything into the form I want it.

I used a couple of poorly-written S-&-R macros and two programs; I was in a hurry. I ought to just code this in Python or VBS but my skills are quite rusty.

--p!