Editing

Rows

Adding & Removing Rows

Adding rows is as easy as you would expect. Use Cmd-R to add a row to the end of the file, or Cmd-Shift-R to insert a row above the selection (the first of the currently-selected rows). Alternatively, you can issue these commands using the "Rows" menu, or the toolbar.

You can add multiple rows ( Cmd-Opt-R ) in one batch if you need to as well. Specify the number of rows and click "Add".

Removing rows is just as easy. Select the rows and press delete (or the toolbar button, or choose "Remove Selected Row(s)" from the "Rows" menu).

Use Row As Headers

Tabular files often come with headers in the first row, designating the title of each field / column. A quick way to use this row as the header row (so that it's not moved / sorted / searched with the data rows) is to press Cmd-Shift-H or choose "Use Row As Header" from the "Rows" menu. Once this is done, the column titles will be set according to the fields in the chosen row and the row itself will be removed from the table (headers are always saved or exported as the first row in the file). You can also edit column headers individually and clear all headers. See the "Headers" section in Saving & Exporting for more information about saving and exporting.

Moving Rows

You can manually reorder one or more rows by dragging them into position. You can also sort rows by a given column.

Creating a New Document From the Selected Rows

You can quickly and easily create a new document from the selected rows by pressing Cmd-Shift-N or by choosing "New From Selected Rows" from the "File" menu. XTabulator will create a new document from the new rows, preserving the headers if any exist in the original document.

Copying Rows & Pasting Into Another Document

You can copy rows from one document and paste them into another, only if both documents have the same number of columns. Note: XTabulator does not attempt to match columns by name or any particular order. The rows will be pasted with their fields in the same positions they held in the original document.

Columns

Adding & Removing Columns

You can add a column by pressing Cmd-Shift-C or by selecting "Add Column" from the "Columns" menu (or by using the toolbar). A new column will be added to the end of columns.

You can delete a column by selecting it (by clicking once on its header) and pressing Cmd-Delete or by choosing "Remove Selected Column(s)" from the "Columns" menu, or by using the toolbar.

Reordering Columns

Columns can be reordered by drag and drop. Just click and drag a column's header to move it to its new position.

Filling & Emptying Columns

You can fill a column with text or numbers by selecting a column and choosing "Fill..." from the "Columns" menu or by selecting it from the column's action button.

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You can fill the column with a supplied text (choosing whether to overwrite populated fields or fill only empty fields), or with an ascending or descending number.

You can quickly clear the contents of a column by selecting "Empty" from the "Columns" menu or by selecting it from the column's action button.

Converting Case of Columns

You can easily convert the case of the first letter of every field in a column by selecting "Convert to Uppercase" or "Convert to Lowercase" from the "Columns" menu or by selecting it from the column's action button. Only the first character of the field is changed.

Clear All Headers

You can quickly clear all headers (effectively eliminating the entire header row) by selecting "Clear All Headers" from the "Columns" menu.

Editing Header Titles

The header titles of columns can be edited individually by double-clicking a column's header. A bubble pops up where you can edit the title. Press return or click the "Done" button to accept the change or press escape or click outside the editor to cancel the change. Alternatively, you can edit the title by selecting "Edit Title" from the column's action button (or clear the title by selecting "Clear Title" from the action button).

Sorting Rows by Column

You can sort rows by a column by selecting the column from the "Sort" submenu of the "Columns" menu or by selecting it from the column's action button. You can sort in ascending or descending order. See the "Sorting" section for more information.

The Column Action Button

When you mouse over the header of a column, you'll notice a small button with a down-pointing triangle. Clicking the triangle reveals a menu with column-level actions. This is called the "Column Action Button". It is a convenient way to apply actions to a given column without reaching for the menu bar and all actions that are appropriate for individual columns can be found here.

Column Sizing Behavior

The editor's columns can be configured to automatically size in a variety of ways, or to not automatically resize at all. This behavior can be accessed from the "Auto-Sizing Behavior" submenu of the "Columns" menu. Each sizing mode can be engaged by the corresponding menu shortcuts. The default is no autosizing - you must manually resize columns with the mouse.

Columns can be manually sized by clicking and dragging the border between two column headers (this sets the size of the column to the left of the border).

Sorting

Sorting behaves a bit differently in XTabulator than in most applications in two ways:

  1. Sorting by a column is a one-time operation. XTabulator does not keep the rows sorted by that column. This is because columns can be manually reordered by drag and drop.
  2. Sorting is aware of numbers. When sorting, XTabulator identifies numbers in fields and takes them into account as part of the sort order (using the same logic as the Finder). This means " Apple 1" will appear before "Apple 10", which in turn will appear before "Apple 11" in an ascending sort.

Line Endings

To change the line ending, select a different line ending in the line endings popup control. When you save the file, it will be written using the selected line ending. You can also change the line endings from the "Edit" menu. Undo or select the original line ending to restore it.

File Encoding

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To change the file encoding, select a different encoding in the encoding popup control. You can also change the encoding from the "Edit" menu. You will be asked to confirm this change (see the warning below). If you confirm it, the data will be automatically converted. When you save the file, it will be written using the selected encoding.

You can undo this change as long as you don't close the file. As with any application, however, once you save and close the file, this can no longer be undone.

Warning: Changing between some encodings can result in lost data (ie, are "lossy" conversions). For example, some characters that exist in "Unicode-32" do not exist in "ASCII" (a simpler format) and will be converted to their nearest match when possible. Once this is done, you won't be able to convert back because the information for that character will be lost. This is the nature of conversion between encodings and is not specific to XTabulator.