The width of columns is automatically determined by the table editor. Sometimes a single field or a few fields need to carry more text, leading to inconveniently wide columns. To limit1 the width of a column, one field anywhere in the column may contain just the string ‘<N>’ where ‘N’ is an integer specifying the width of the column in characters. The next re-align will then set the width of this column to no more than this value.
|---+------------------------------| |---+--------|
| | | | | <6> |
| 1 | one | | 1 | one |
| 2 | two | ----\ | 2 | two |
| 3 | This is a long chunk of text | ----/ | 3 | This=> |
| 4 | four | | 4 | four |
|---+------------------------------| |---+--------|
Fields that are wider become clipped and end in the string ‘=>’. Note that the full text is still in the buffer, it is only invisible. To see the full text, hold the mouse over the field - a tool-tip window will show the full content. To edit such a field, use the command C-c ` (that is C-c followed by the backquote). This will open a new window with the full field. Edit it and finish with C-c C-c.
When visiting a file containing a table with narrowed columns, the
necessary character hiding has not yet happened, and the table needs to
be aligned before it looks nice. Setting the option
org-startup-align-all-tables will realign all tables in a file
upon visiting, but also slow down startup. You can also set this option
on a per-file basis with:
#+STARTUP: align
#+STARTUP: noalign