DOORS tables

Is there a work-around for splitting cells or merging cells in a DOORS table? Is my only solution to imbed and Excel file as an OLE?
Bittner - Thu Feb 17 15:12:24 EST 2011

Re: DOORS tables
SystemAdmin - Thu Feb 17 18:29:25 EST 2011

I'm afraid that the only way you can split cells and merge cells is to add, remove and change the width of cells manually until you get what you want - a very tough task given that DOORS also does not support cut-n-paste editing (moving) of DOORS table cells, rows or columns. It's even tougher if you head down this path and come back later wanting to re-arrange the cell structure again.

As you have discovered - DOORS tables are not supported by a rich set of features such as tables in MSWord. If you understand the underlying object structure of a DOORS table then you can see why they are hard to manipulate in terms of splitting, merging etc - I'm sure that the DOORS developers could have come up with a better implementation.

Having said that - a DOORS best practice to remember for the future is only use DOORS tables if you really really really need to.

Use embedded OLE objects instead - either a table created in MSExcel or a table created in MSWord. I prefer the MSWord option but I don't use the "Microsoft Word Document" OLE option - I use the "Microsoft Word Picture" OLE option which allows you to define a crop area that fits the size of the table rather that an A4\Letter sized document area that has a lot of wasted white space.

One more best practice that has nothing to do with DOORS - keep your tables in specifications as small and as simple as you can. If you can, break larger tables up into smaller tables where each table chunk contains functionally cohesive information - whilst it's a nice concept to be able to link to individual table cells, there are hidden traps with this (regardless of DOORS), if the table is small and the info it contains is functionally cohesive, then you can get away with linking to the entire table. Small tables are easier to read, easier to interpret and easier to manage.
Paul Miller
Melbourne, Australia

Re: DOORS tables
llandale - Fri Feb 18 09:53:32 EST 2011

DOORS tables byte.

You can insert a MS-Word OLE table by opening Word, inserting a Word OLE Object and creating your table therein, closing the object then selecting it in Word, copy, and paste into DOORS.

Small tables are probably better off as what I call "RTF Tables": create the table directly in Word (without a 2ndary Word Object) or Excel, select and copy it, paste it into DOORS. There is no OLE but you get what looks like a table. To change the table you need to copy it in DOORS, paste it into Word/Excel, adjust it there, then copy it back.

The RTF tables have the significant advantage that you can search and filter on their contents; and they take up FAR less bytes.

  • Louie