Import Data into a Table in Dreamweaver

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by Don Herion

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Entering delimited data in Dreamweaver has become fast and painless in Dreamweaver 3.0. Delimited data means information that has been demarcated or separated by tabs, spaces or colon. This type of information is usually created in office applications like MS Word, WordPerfect, Excel, and Lotus. A typical file might be a chart of statistics. This tutorial will demonstrate how easy it is to import such data into a Dreamweaver document.

Step 1 - Get a delimited document. I am using a simple Excel file created for this exercise. In my case - nl_batting_avg.txt - a simple text file created in Excel listing the top 10 hitters for batting average in the National League. You can not import the native Excel files (.xls). You must save files as a - Text (tab delimited) *.txt file.

Step 2 - Open a new document or an existing template.

Step 3 - If the 'Objects' palette is not open go - Ctrl - F2. Click the 'Insert Tabular Data' icon.

This opens the 'Insert Tabular Data' dialog box.

Step 4 - Click Browse and find your delimited data file. Open to select the file. You have a number of options within this dialog box. Here are explanations for each option:

Data File: This is the delimited file you want to import

Delimiter: Here you choose the type of delimiter used with the data file. Excel delimits cells using tabs. But you can also use commas, semicolons, colons and other. Other can be any single character, symbol or punctuation mark - i.e. asterisks, exclamation points, dollar symbols, 7, etc.

Table Width: You basically have three options when importing your data. 'Fit to Data' is probably your best choice, it conforms the table around your data. The other two choices are setting the table size to pixel width or percent. I would use 'Fit to Data' initially and then edit your table using the 'Properties' palette.

Cell Padding and Cell Spacing: Here you set the padding and spacing for the cells in the table. Again this is something you might want to edit in the 'Properties' palette after the data has been imported.

Format Top Row: This option allows you to format the top row title of your table. Your options are - No Formatting, Bold, Italic and Bold Italic.

Border: Sets the border for the table.

After making your choices (mine are above in the dialog box) click OK.