A Ruby TextExpander snippet that takes data copied to the clipboard from Numbers and pastes LaTeX source for a table environment. Discussed here: http://analysisandsynthesis.com/utilities/2012/12/20/quick-latex-tables-using-textexpander.html

gistfile1.rb

#!/usr/local/bin/ruby

class Line
  
  @@max_length = nil
  @@eol = ' \\\\'
  
  def initialize( data )
    @contents = data
    @@max_length = [0]*@contents.size if @@max_length.nil? # initialize array if this is the first Line instance
    @contents.each_with_index{ |element, i| @@max_length[i] = [element.length, @@max_length[i]].max } # update column widths
  end
  
  def to_tex
    @contents.zip( @@max_length ).collect { |entry, length| entry.ljust(length).sub(/\|/,' ').gsub('&','\\\&') }.join(' & ') + @@eol
  end
  
  def define_format
    @contents.inject('|'){ |string, entry| /\|/.match(entry) ?  string + 'c|' : string + 'c' } + '|'
  end
    
end

table_header = <<END
\\begin{table}[htb]
\\begin{center}
\\begin{tabular}{FORMAT} \\hline
END

table_footer = <<END
\\hline
\\end{tabular}
\\caption{\\label{tab:NEW_LABEL}CAPTION}
\\end{center}
\\end{table}
END

contents = "%clipboard".split( /[\n\r]/ ).collect{ |line| Line.new( line.split( /\t/ ) )}

puts table_header.sub( 'FORMAT', contents[0].define_format ) 
puts contents.collect{ |line| line.to_tex }.join("\n")
puts table_footer

I'm having issues getting this script going. I think I have it setup correctly in TextExpander: http://cl.ly/image/2t3d341B3y0r .

I have these numbers in Numbers: http://cl.ly/image/3R3q1D2v1H1d . When I copy them to the clipboard and use ':testable' as my snippet call, nothing is output. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

@mreiach: Looks okay to me. What do you get as the output if you just run the snippet as a normal ruby executable? I get

\begin{table}[htb]
\begin{center}
\begin{tabular}{|c|} \aline
%clipboard \\
\hline
\end{tabular}
\caption{\label{tab:NEW_LABEL}CAPTION}
\end{center}
\end{table}