Subject: For your vim/latex page
Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2000 11:54:34 +0100
From: erik.janssen_2@philips.com
To: benji@e-math.ams.org

hello Benji,

I read your posting about starting a page for vim-tools for latex. I
accidentally deleted the mail, so I don't know where to have a look at it
(could you mail the URL please?), but here is a little tool for latex-tables
that you might like to add. It is
not really for use in vim, but one can integrate it it in vim very easily, I
use it as my 'equalprg' in vim, however, it can only (re)format tables.

Feel free to throw it away if it doesn't fit your purpose or when somebody
else has a superior tool

Regards,

Erik.

What does it do?
-------------------------
It prettifies tabular data, lining up columns and giving numeric colums
special treatment. It can also insert latex commands to make it a latex
table. There are some examples below, please look at them using a fixed
font.

Limitations
----------------
- It's a awk-script. Awk is present on all unix'es, but not
  standard on windows. A lot of awk's for windows can be
  found on the net. I developed it under windows, so it can
  certainly run there.

- It is quite slow (yet).

- When changing an existing latex table, the line-setting
  can not be changed

- It does not deal with comments

- the printf-specifiers you can read about in the script are
  hardly tested as they were a nice idea, but I have no use
  for it

In other words, it's version 1.

Examples
---------------
Input:
======
I am 29.1 years old
I eat 7 pizza's a day

With 'awk -f mktable.awk' changed into:
=======================================
I am  29.1 years   old
I eat  7   pizza's a    day

With 'awk -v mode=latex -line=2 -f mktable.awk' changed into
============================================================
\begin{tabular}{||l||l||l||r||l||l||}
I & am  & 29.1 & years   & old &     \\ \hline \hline
I & eat &  7   & pizza's & a   & day \\ \hline \hline
\end{tabular}

When editing the last table afterwards, the alignment may be ruined. Then,
one can select the entire table in vim, and have it processed again.
I mainly use it to be able to just add extra lines in tables without the
annoying &'s and \\'s and have the script re-arrange it.

To use it in vim I do:

 autocmd BufNewFile,BufRead    *.tex set equalprg=awk\ -v\ mode=latex\ -v\
line=1\ -f\ _path_\mktable.awk\ -

But it's also an option to put it in menu items: one for no border, one for
single border and one for double border.