The Components of the Text Import Druid

This drop down menu provides a list of encoding schemes for the characters in the text file. By default, Gnumeric selects the encoding scheme used by the locale of the user. See Section 9.4.1.1 ― Character Encodings for more details.

These three check boxes can be selected individually or together to define the sequences which will be interpreted as line break indicators. Generally, selecting all three boxes will produce the correct results.

The errors produced if the wrong combination of boxes is selected will include the entire file being placed on a single line, empty lines appearing between the lines of the file, or undefined symbols appearing at the beginning or end of almost every line. See Section 9.4.1.2 ― Line break delimiters for more details.

These two push buttons allow the choice between the two different structuring schemes, data structured by placing a separating character between the data values and data organized in fixed width columns. Note that this choice will determine which panel will be shown as the second panel of the druid. See Section 9.4.1.3 ― Data Structuring Strategies for more details.

These two spin buttons allow the user to select the start and end rows for the data import. The spin boxes can be used either by typing a new value in the text entry area where the numbers are displayed, or by using the mouse button to click on the up arrow to increase the number and the down arrow to decrease the number.

For instance, if the text file contained a large header area with meta information, this header could be excluded from the data imported to the Gnumeric worksheet by increasing the number of the starting, "From", line.

This area displays a preview of the file as it will be interpreted when the the settings that are currently selected in this first panel are applied.

These four buttons allow the user to navigate the druid. The Help button should open the Gnumeric manual to this section. The Cancel button will dismiss the dialog and return the user to the worksheet. The Back button is disabled since this is the first panel of the druid and the Forward button will bring up the next panel in the druid.

This are allows the user to define the characters used to separate data value fields within each row. The checkboxes can be pressed to add or remove characters from those treated as separators. Additionally, the 'custom' type allows the user to define either other single characters, or a particular character sequence used to separate values. The preview area in the panel will show the file processed with the rules which have already been applied.

Generally, this type of file structuring uses a single character to separate fields but it is possible to use either several different characters or to use a sequence of characters. For example, it would be possible to use the old telegraphic convention of separating phrases with the word 'STOP' by selecting the 'custom' separator type and entering the character sequence 'STOP' in the text field.

This area also includes a checkbox enabling two separator sequences that immediately follow one another, to be treated as a single separator. This option will only be useful where data is imported with one or more completely empty columns and no partially filled columns. If this option is checked and the data file has partially filled columns of data, the columns will be jumbled during the text import operation.

See Section 9.4.1.3 ― Data Structuring Strategies for more details.

Separated value files often additionally define a character used to indicate the start and end of a data element which should be considered a single text entry. This strategy allows the inclusion of text entries which include the value separator.

For example, a file which is structured as a comma separated value file, could use the double quotation mark to delimit text values and would then be able to include text values such as: 'Zoe, Mark, Sally'.

This area displays a preview of the file as it will be interpreted when the the settings that are currently selected in the first and second panels are applied.

These four buttons allow the user to navigate the druid. The Help button should open the Gnumeric manual to this section. The Cancel button will dismiss the dialog and return the user to the worksheet. The Back button will take the user back to the first panel, without, however, changing the settings in this second panel. The Forward button will bring up the next panel in the druid.

This left most button, named Auto Column Discovery, will cause Gnumeric to scan the file an attempt to assign the columns automatically. The example presented in Figure 9-4 shows one result after this button has been pressed: many of the columns were discovered automatically, but the second and third columns were misidentified. Nonetheless, the automatic mechanism provides a useful starting point. The definition of the columns can be refined using the methods described below.

This right most button, named Clear, will clear all the column definitions and reset the file to a single column. This button should be used cautiously since there is no way to reverse its action and any carefully prepared column definition layout will be irretrievably lost.

This area acts as both a preview area and an area where users can define the columns widths.

As a preview area, this area displays a preview of the file as it will be interpreted when the the settings that are currently selected in this first panel are applied.

This area can also be used to define column widths. When the panel first appears, a single column will be defined. The automatic column discovery mechanism may split this single column into many more columns. The mouse can then be used to further divide columns or to join previously separate columns.

A new column can be defined by placing the mouse pointer where the column should start and double-clicking with the primary mouse button. This will split the column which used to contain this position and add a new column starting at this location.

To remove the definition of a column which already exists or to alter the ending position of a column, the context menu must be used. The context menu appears by clicking with one of the secondary mouse buttons. A column which has already been defined can be merged with the column on the left or right using the Delete and Merge Left or Delete and Merge right menu items. The size of a column can be increased by placing the mouse pointer inside the column area or header and using the Widen or Narrow menu items, respectively. Either of these will change the width of the column by changing the right hand end of the column.

The context menu can also be used to define new columns using the Split menu item but the double-click approach described above should be easier.

These four buttons allow the user to navigate the druid. The Help button should open the Gnumeric manual to this section. The Cancel button will dismiss the dialog and return the user to the worksheet. The Back button will take the user back to the first panel, without, however, changing the settings in this second panel. The Forward button will bring up the next panel in the druid.

This button provides a list allowing the user to select whether to trim any outer columns which are completely empty. The choices are to delete the columns on both sides, on neither side, or on one side only. This will only affect columns which have been previously defined but which contain no data values at all.

This button provides a list of locales which can be set. The chosen locale will affect how numeric values are interpreted when then are imported. For instance, the locale will define the character expected as the decimal separator which is the period character (.) in some locales, and the comma character (,) in others. These locales generally then use the other character as the spacer grouping the digits in thousands.

This list allows predetermining the format which Gnumeric will assign to each of the values in the columns selected below. Cell data formats are explained in Section 5.10 ― Formatting Cells.

To use this list, first, one or more columns must be selected in the preview area below, then, a data format in this list can be selected, and finally any details of the format can be configured. Number formats for instance allow the user to force numbers to contain fixed number of digits after the decimal point.

This area allows users to select columns which will be preformatted, to select which columns to include in the import and to preview the file. Each single column can be selected by clicking with the mouse pointer on the column header. Any single column can be excluded from the data imported to the Gnumeric worksheet by clicking in the checkbox in the column header to remove the check mark. The area also provides a preview of the data in the text file showing the effect of the with the current configuration.

These four buttons allow the user to navigate the druid. The Help button should open the Gnumeric manual to this section. The Cancel button will dismiss the dialog and return the user to the worksheet. The Back button will take the user back to the second panel, without, however, changing the settings in this third panel. The Finish button will dismiss the druid and cause the file to be imported into a new worksheet using the selected configuration parameters.