Mark Vandermaas commented on Tables won't save alignments
Scott: Thanks so much for the workaround! Very kind of you.
1. The 3 column table on your site looks good & works well. I’ll pass a link to this page on to whoever is going to code the changes for us. I’ve already learned from experience that bad things happen when I try to make even the simplest change to the coding in the templates. ;)
2. You mentioned another ‘non-table’ way to create ‘tables.’ I was trying to use a 2 column table with hidden borders on the homepage underneath the image sliders to create boxes in which we can post image/text links to featured pages. What is the alternative method?
3. Is there a particular reference book/site that you like that can teach this stuff?
posted 2015-03-04 05:00:48 -0800
1. The 3 column table on your site looks good & works well. I’ll pass a link to this page on to whoever is going to code the changes for us. I’ve already learned from experience that bad things happen when I try to make even the simplest change to the coding in the templates. ;)
2. You mentioned another ‘non-table’ way to create ‘tables.’ I was trying to use a 2 column table with hidden borders on the homepage underneath the image sliders to create boxes in which we can post image/text links to featured pages. What is the alternative method?
3. Is there a particular reference book/site that you like that can teach this stuff?
Mark Vandermaas commented on When I export my petition to a .csv, I don't get the fields I need
I had the same question. I wanted different fields, too. Thanks to Jason I tried the CSV workaround:
1. STEP BY STEP: I did the CSV export thing because the PDF default fields (name & state/province) are not suitable for me.
a. It doesn’t appear that you need to add a tag to the petition anymore; fortunately, the export settings for the petition (Petition settings> Signatures> ‘Displaying all signatures’) allow you to create a new list from the batch of signers, THEN export it. To add the signatures to a list: click on the ‘+’ button above ‘Displaying all signatures’. At the bottom of the box that opens is a greyed option called ‘+ Create list’. Click on that and give your list a name, i.e. p1501 (Petition, year 2015, petition #1). Click ‘Create.’ Now you have a list you can add all the signatures to.
c. To get the list: go to People> Lists> [list name, i.e. p1501]. Click on the list name to bring up a page with the records for each person who signed. Click ‘Export’> Start export. Save the file and open it. It will open with Excel.
d. If you’re using Open Office, you’ll see a dialogue box when you try to open the file. Under ‘Separator options’ make sure the ‘Separated by’ button is checked, and unselect all other options except ‘Comma’. Otherwise, fields will run together.
That was the easy part.
e. The next issue to overcome is that your CSV spreadsheet includes dozens of fields that you must manually remove. OK, it’s not perfect, but it’s a doable workaround. Delete each column you don’t want.
f. But…getting the fields whittled down isn’t hard part; the hard part is trying to get Excel to simply put a number beside each name in sequence. Easy if you have 100 names to number; not so easy if it’s 20,000. Try doing it! I wasted hours Googling & trying solutions to what should be a very simple thing to accomplish in Excel.
2. UPGRADE SUGGESTION: The end use of a petition (i.e. delivering it to a political/business leader) is important; signers expect it to be delivered, so it would be nice to see that work properly. May I suggest:
a. create a simple checklist of common fields in the dashboard where we could select the fields we want. (name, email, postal code, country works for me). These would apply for PDF and/or CSV as needed. ensure that the CSV list has a field with signatures numbered in sequence at time of export. PDF already is numbered.)
posted 2015-03-08 19:24:47 -0700
1. STEP BY STEP: I did the CSV export thing because the PDF default fields (name & state/province) are not suitable for me.
a. It doesn’t appear that you need to add a tag to the petition anymore; fortunately, the export settings for the petition (Petition settings> Signatures> ‘Displaying all signatures’) allow you to create a new list from the batch of signers, THEN export it. To add the signatures to a list: click on the ‘+’ button above ‘Displaying all signatures’. At the bottom of the box that opens is a greyed option called ‘+ Create list’. Click on that and give your list a name, i.e. p1501 (Petition, year 2015, petition #1). Click ‘Create.’ Now you have a list you can add all the signatures to.
c. To get the list: go to People> Lists> [list name, i.e. p1501]. Click on the list name to bring up a page with the records for each person who signed. Click ‘Export’> Start export. Save the file and open it. It will open with Excel.
d. If you’re using Open Office, you’ll see a dialogue box when you try to open the file. Under ‘Separator options’ make sure the ‘Separated by’ button is checked, and unselect all other options except ‘Comma’. Otherwise, fields will run together.
That was the easy part.
e. The next issue to overcome is that your CSV spreadsheet includes dozens of fields that you must manually remove. OK, it’s not perfect, but it’s a doable workaround. Delete each column you don’t want.
f. But…getting the fields whittled down isn’t hard part; the hard part is trying to get Excel to simply put a number beside each name in sequence. Easy if you have 100 names to number; not so easy if it’s 20,000. Try doing it! I wasted hours Googling & trying solutions to what should be a very simple thing to accomplish in Excel.
2. UPGRADE SUGGESTION: The end use of a petition (i.e. delivering it to a political/business leader) is important; signers expect it to be delivered, so it would be nice to see that work properly. May I suggest:
a. create a simple checklist of common fields in the dashboard where we could select the fields we want. (name, email, postal code, country works for me). These would apply for PDF and/or CSV as needed. ensure that the CSV list has a field with signatures numbered in sequence at time of export. PDF already is numbered.)