This is terribly disheartening. I haven't found a single app that can be
used to make a table for publication - the problem is that it appears that
linux apps don't really understand what "monospaced font" means.
I have tried to create a table (will contain lines separating the title from
the column headings and the headings from the data - 4 columns) using various
erstwhile monospaced fonts (ugly courier, Lucida console, quicktype mono) in
xfig, kpresenter, kontour, gimp, kivio. Not a single one of them respects
"monospaced" fonts and, instead, seems to prefer to adjust character spacing
and alter the size of spaces as well so that monospaced fonts really aren't.
Four columns with entries like:
H17* R, C -> T +
H17 R & U5 duplication +
H168 partial U5 duplication +
H40 tRNA & cellular sequence insertion +
H72 U3, GAG -> ACC +
H115 R, C -> T +
and so forth. NO justification - no center, not left, not right. Just
whatever I enter by spaces or tabs. The names on the left should align - no
problem in any app. The center column is mixed. The commas and arrows
(drawn, not the text verstion depicted here) should all line up right down
the line. The more complex statments don't matter. Finally, the plus
symbols should ALL stack up directly one under the other in their respective
column. This is THE biggest problem with EVERY app I have tried. In spite
of using monospaced fonts in any of the above apps, by the time I get to the
plus signs, in particular, they are out of alignment. This should NEVER
happen if one is truly using monospaced fonts. Spaces and all characters
have an absolutely equal width, no exceptions. Yet each app I have tried
appear to nonetheless make proportional changes to the empty spaces if not
the characters themselves.
After struggling for a couple hours, I gave up, hopped on a local iMac, fired
up MacroMedia Freehand and within 10 minutes had what I was after. It is
disheartening that this was necessary. I had hoped that I would be able to
do all my graphics/figures/diagramming work in linux but so far there is
nothing available that can handle something as simple as a table(!!!)
Does anyone know of some obscure graphics/vector-drawing app that actually
truly understands what monospaced fonts are and how they are dealt with?
This is terribly frustrating...
praedor
