Cell Attributes
Keywords: teapot

Subsections

- Precision
- Exponential / Decimal
- Adjustment
- Label
- Lock
- Ignore
- Transparent
- Shadow
- Column Width

##
Cell Attributes

Cells can have several attributes:

- A cell label, which is useful because it avoids to directly address cells by their position. A cell label must be different from function names.
- The cell adjustment, which determines if the cell value is printed left adjusted, right adjusted or centered.
- The precision for the output of floating point values. The default is 2 digits after the dot.
- If floating point numbers should be printed in scientific notation (0.123e1) or as decimal number (1.23). It only affects the output, if the cell value is a floating point number.
- If the cell is shadowed by its left neighbour. This means that the left neighbour cell additionally uses the room of the shadowed cell.
- If the cell is locked which prevents to accidentally edit or clear it. Note that block operations override this attribute, because when you deal with blocks, you usually know what you are doing.
- If special characters for e.g. roff and LATEX should be quoted (default) or not. Not quoting them allows special effects (if you know roff or LATEX), but is of course not portable.

### Precision

The precision only changes what is printed, teapot always uses the maximum precision for calculations. It also only affects the output if the cell value is a floating point number. Entering an empty precision means to set it to the default value.

### Exponential / Decimal

Forces exponential notation for numbers in a cell. Decimal mode will prefer plain decimal numbers unless the result is very big or very small.

### Adjustment

Cells contents can be aligned to the left, right or centered. By default, text is left adjusted and numbers are right adjusted.

### Label

This function lets you edit the cell label of the current cell. Further it changes all occurences of it in the cell contents to the new value, unless you erased the cell label. If a block has been marked by the time you edit the cell label, all occurences of the label in contents of cells in that block will be changed.

### Lock

You can lock cells to protect them from accidental editing. Note that this protects you from modifying single cells. If you modify a block of cells which contains locked cells, those will be modified as well. This has been done because when using block commands, you usually know what you are doing.

### Ignore

Ignored cells will be completely ignored. They appear as empty cells on screen and during calculations. This is useful for temporarily disabling parts of your calculation, as the former content reappears when the ignore is removed again.

### Transparent

Usually, values are quoted as needed so that you get the exact same output as on screen. Transparent cells will be exported as-is into display-oriented file formats (LATEX, etc.) so that you can embed commands for subsequent processing in cell values.

### Shadow

Shadowed cells are effectively nonexistant. Instead, their left neighbour cell extends into the shadowed cell, so that longer text can be displayed. You may think of shadowing as a way to get multi-column cells.

### Column Width

The column width only affects the screen display, not the formatting of the final output (except formatted text files). It is intended to let you make better usage of the screen for more overview. If the width is too small to display the cell value, a placeholder will be displayed.