(Automated) Tables in RoboHelp

So we have this table on Excel. It's a table with different amounts  spread across multiple columns and multiple rows over many pages. The  way this table is set up is that we change one amount (which is hidden)  and then all other amounts change. In other words, all the formulas in  the cells use that hidden number as a base. Anyway, is there a way to do  a similar thing in RoboHelp? Right now, we have our manual on RoboHelp  and these tables are part of a separate (Excel) document, and we want to  make these Excel sheets part of the manual proper. Is it possible to do  this on RoboHelp?
Thanks a lot all.

Have you tried linking to the spreadsheet? How well that works will depend on the type of output you are creating and it may not work smoothly for all users in all browsers if webhelp is your output.
RoboHelp does not offer any spreadsheet functions of its own and I don't think any HTML editor does. Tables can be created but that's a different thing.
See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips
@petergrainge

Similar Messages

  • Tables in RoboHelp's printed documentation

    Hi,
    I am trying to figure out if I can somehow tag tables in RoboHelp to ensure they are not split into two different pages. I'm working with RoboHelp7. RoboHelp will put a page break between two rows, so I'll have half a table on one page of the pdf output and half on another. Often, the row that's been pushed onto the second page will no longer have an upper border. It looks really odd. Can I instruct RoboHelp to avoid page breaks in tables? If not in RH7, is this possible in RH9?
    Thanks,
    Louley

    Please see the sticky topic Before You Post and always include your version of RoboHelp when you start a thread.
    That problem does not occur if you use tables created using the table editor in RoboHelp 8 or 9. If you visit my site there are some Word macros that will process your tables and fix that problem with other tables. You will need to edit them to change the colours and removed changes you don't want but they are commented to help with that process.
    There may also be a link with the template you use when you create the printed documentation.
    See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips
    @petergrainge

  • Vertical text direction / orientation in tables. (RoboHelp 7 and/or 8)

    Hello all,
    I need to squeeze a fairly full table (lots of columns) into a printable page width.
    In order to do this, I need to put text into some of the cells so that they read vertically. I can do this in MS Word tables (menu > Format > Text Direction) and need an equivalent in RH. Preferably RH7, (but can import into RH8 if I must ).
    Any ideas anyone?

    Hi Philip
    My guess is that you can probably fudge it using CSS. But it won't be something RoboHelp will assist with in any way.
    Check the link below for one hit I found. Use Google searching for vertical text in HTML to find others.
    Click here to view
    Cheers... Rick
    Helpful and Handy Links
    RoboHelp Wish Form/Bug Reporting Form
    Begin learning RoboHelp HTML 7 or 8 moments from now - $24.95!
    Adobe Certified RoboHelp HTML Training
    SorcererStone Blog
    RoboHelp eBooks

  • Automating Table and Figure Numbering

    I have a large document with many figures and tables that get removed/added or just change locations throughout the document while being reviewed.  It is also required to have a sentence in the text referring to the table/figure.  My question: is there any way to make the table/figure numbers automated so I don't have to keep renumbering them and the corresponding text as they get moved around? 
    I have checked forums and reference books but haven't been able to find anything about this.  Has anyone else run into this problem?  If so how did you work it out?
    Thanks for the help!
    Melanie

    Hi Torben,
    This looks exactly like what I need to do and sounds like it would work perfectly but I ran into a small problem...
    Got stuck at the first instruction: "Open the Window-Type & Tables - Cross Reference"
    Cross Reference doesn't appear in the Type & Tables window.  I'm wondering if this may be the difference between CS3 and CS4.  We are currently using CS3.  I checked the Visual Quick Start book that I have to see if it was just in a different location in the CS3 version but wasn't able to find it. 
    Do you know of a way to do this same thing in CS3? 
    Thanks so much for your quick response, you've been so helpful!
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  • Importing Excel tables into RoboHelp

    This procedure worked with RoboHelp 8.0.2, Microsoft Office 2003 and Windows XP. It should be OK for other versions and for OpenOffice but I can't test that here.
    My developer proudly gave me a list of 200 error codes as an Excel table with four columns: Number, Description, Source, Possible Solution. Top-class stuff for a service manual, but it meant 800 rounds of Tab Ctrl-C Alt-Tab Tab Ctrl-V Alt-Tab. Being naturally lazy I decided to try an easier way.
    In RoboHelp I created a simple table of 2 rows and 4 columns. I formatted the cells as Normal and looked at the HTML.
    The Table Row <tr> and Cell <td> structure is easy to see; Each row begins with
      <tr><td><p>
    Between each cell is
      </p></td><td><p>
    Each row ends with
      </p></td></tr>
    First I `cleaned' my Excel sheet; I used Replace All to replace all commas with a string "COMMA". I also replaced ampersands "&" with the html "&amp;" and then replaced greater-than ">" with "&gt;" and less-than "<" with "&lt;"
    Then I inserted columns in the spreadsheet and filled them with the HTML table structure described above. I saved the Excel sheet as a comma-delimited file CSV.
    I closed Excel and opened the CSV file with a text editor (Notepad).
    I used Replace All to remove all commas (inserted by Excel); then restored the real commas by replacing the string COMMA.
    Then I copied the entire contents of the file onto the clipboard, and pasted it into the HTML to replace my dummy rows.
    That was it! RoboHelp accepted the transplant and I could format the header rows and set column widths in the normal way.
    Dear RH and HTML gurus reading this: is my procedure safe? or will something come back to bite me later?
    --- Derek

    Our developer-provided tables are huge (up to 15 columns and 400 rows), so we've been able to have the developers create HTML files (not HTM) with similar formatting to our regular tables.
    We then set up links to those files and add them to Baggage Files. They don't become part of the search (no problem for us, since we can include them into our Zoom Search indexing process), nor do they get processed by RoboHelp (which was a big plus because RH used to choke on those tables in HTM format).
    The other plus is not having to repeat your process every time changes are made by the developers (they run their own conversion process and you plug in the replacement version of the file that they provide).
    Good luck,
    Leon

  • Automating table header and scope assignment?

    Is there any way to automate the process of assigning headers and scope in a table in a pdf document?
    We regularly produce large volumes of pdf documents for our clients, that include among other things tables.  We have recently been informed that our documents need to be Accessible (508 compliant).  Being able to produce these in an automated fashion is required due to our volume.  For example, our current project involves producing 4,300 4 page documents that include a total of  six tables each.  While the layout is uniform for these, the data in the tables is unique for each one.
    We produce the documents using SAS and are using adobe action scripts to automate the process of tagging the documents, adding properties and doing a full accessibility check.  We have also used commonlook to verify that we are meeting the additional accessibility requirements that the full accessibility check does not cover.  The one part that we have not been able to figure out is how to automate the tagging of header cells in the document as headers and set the scope. 
    SAS does not natively tag the PDF documents, which is why we tag them with an Acrobat action.  For an alternative approach, I have tried converting an html document with a properly formatted table (headers and scope assigned) from html to pdf to see if headers and scope could be assigned that way, but the header and scope assignment was lost in the conversion.
    If there is no way to automate this through Acrobat somehow, is there a PDF authoring tool that can produce PDF documents with properly tagged and scoped tables in an automated fashion from a data source?  Preferably one that can use a SAS dataset or Oracle for the source data.

    Thank you for replying.  I understand that header rows and columns need to be properly tagged and scoped to be accessible (508 compliant) which is why I am looking for a tool or plugin that I can set up to properly tag them in an automated fashion. 
    You mention using a plug-in.  Do you know of a plug-in that can be set up to properly tag the table headers and scope without manual intervention?
    If I tag the tables in these documents manually, it takes me about 10 minutes per document.  for 4,300 documents, at 40 hours per week, it will take about 4 1/2 months to tag all of them.  That is just one of many projects.  That is not an option.
    Can anyone suggest a PDF authoring tool that can produce properly tagged PDF's, including table headers and scope, in a productionalized fashion using SAS or Oracle or SQL Server or Access, or Excel as a data source?
    Or an Acrobat plug-in that can be set up to properly tag the table headers and scope without manual intervention?

  • Robohelp HTML 9 hyperlinks in table cells help

    Hi,
    I'm creating a table in robohelp html 9 and adding hyperlinks in the table cells. If the hyperlink is the first word in that cell robohelp is adding styling code to the link eg <td><a href="#" style="color: #0000ff; text-decoration: underline; ">test</a></td>.
    If I add a link to the second word in a table cell the styling does not appear or even if I add a space before the link the code does not appear eg <td>&#160;<a href="#">test</a> </td>.
    The code appears when I flick between design and HTML views but it does not make any difference in which view I create the link.
    No matter how many times I delete this code is keeps coming back. Can  anyone please help me? Is there some default that gives this the styling  code?Does anyone else get this issue?
    A table with the different examples is below. It was created in design view by clicking table>insert table>OK. Links added by clicking the insert hyperlink button.
    <table style="border-collapse: separate; border-collapse: separate;" cellspacing="0"
             width="33.333%" border="1">
        <col style="width: 100%;" />
        <tr>
            <td><a href="#" style="color: #0000ff; text-decoration: underline; ">test
             that has the added code</a></td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <td>&#160;<a href="#">test with space in front of link</a> </td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <td><a href="#" style="color: #0000ff; text-decoration: underline; ">test</a></td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <td>A <a href="#">test</a> </td>
        </tr>
    </table>
    Thanks in advanced

    I have the same problem with those stupid links in tables - I've been working on this for HOURS and HOURS...... Based on previous experience, I assumed it must only be me and an ill-formed stylesheet. The table/link issue just came to my attention because I am in the process of changing styles/formats to a new company standard (new link color) and thought I really screwed my CSS up as I was changing things!
    My only workaround thusfar has been to rewrite some data in the tables so that text will precede the link (yes, I did).  And where I just couldn't do that, I resigned myself to the problem and forced a different color on the links (changing the #0000ff).  One plus was that RH didn't rewrite the color code once it was changed manually..... but then I realized later that I didn't consider the hover color when I did this, so I now have to go back and correct them. 
    So glad to find your post...........
    I played with the idea of adding hidden text, but was worried that the problem was really a result of an issue with my CSS and doing that wasn't the proper way to fix it.   So, without guilt, I took Rick's suggestion and added an invisible dot/period at the beginning of every link in a table, when that link is the first or only content in the td.  Did the trick!  Now the links assume my declared css style! 
    I submitted a bug report.......
    Thank you!!!

  • Table of Contents and Section Numbering ??s

    Hi, we are using CS6 and have a couple questions about trying to use automated section numbering and table of contents in a single document. We don’t do this often (actually, never used auto-TOC before), so I just want to see if I’m missing something obvious.
    SECTION NUMBERING WITH SECTION INTRO PAGES
    Our document (a style guide) is divided into sections. Each section begins with a section intro title page, which is basically just a blank page with the new section’s title nicely styled. We are setting up our sections as 1, 2, 3, 4, etc. And we would REALLY prefer for the page numbering to be ’1.0, 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, etc.’, where X.0 is the section intro page.
    1) I can add the sections OK with a prefix of 1., 2., etc. But InDesign does not allow me to start the section numbering at ’0′, it must be ’1′. So my intro pages HAVE to be 1.1, 2.1, 3.1, etc. instead of 1.0, 2.0, 3.0 etc. Any creative workaround to solve this??? We really don’t want the intro pages to be X.1, as they have no content and we want the X.1 page to be the first with content on it, NOT X.2. How do people generally handle a section intro page?
    AUTO PAGE NUMBERS AND TOC
    We are trying to use the automated Table of Content feature and running into an odd issue. We have page titles on top of each page in a unique paragraph style (H1). We are adding the page number at the beginning of this paragraph using ‘Type > Marker > Current Page Number’ and a unique character style. It’s working fine on the pages, showing the appropriate section numbering we setup for the document (e.g., 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 2.4, etc.).
    But when we make the table of contents, the ‘page numbers’ at the beginning of the titles are coming in as absolute numbers (e.g., 7, 8 , 9, 10, 11, etc.) instead of our section numbering. I checked the General Preferences, and it is set to ‘View: Section Numbering’. And when I exported an interactive PDF, the bookmarks also add the absolute page number at the beginning of the titles as in the TOC. But if I set the TOC to include page numbers automatically, those DO display correct section numbers (they just precede or follow our titles with the incorrect numbering).
    2) Any ideas why the TOC and PDF Bookmarks would be picking up absolute numbering while the actual titles on the pages show the proper section numbering?
    THANKS!

    Peter Spier wrote:
    I've never tried adding a second marker to a paragraph like that. Why not use a numbered list instead?
    Just checking in here. Not sure I understand what you mean about using a numbered list. Do you mean instead of the page numbers in the titles, or instead of the Table of Contents? Not sure how either could be automated to stay in sync with adding/removing pages and creating the TOC links and bookmarks in our PDFs.
    - Is there a bug when the TOC pulls the specified title paragraphs and they have page numbers in them?
    Thanks. Still trying to see if we're doing something wrong as this is the first we've played with TOC.

  • TOC Does Not Open in WebHelp Generated with RoboHelp 11

    The TOC does not open in WebHelp Generated with RoboHelp 11. I tried other solutions posted on this forum but no success. Any ideas? Thanks in advance for your assistance.

    Hi Jeff,
    Thanks for responding! I uninstalled and reinstalled RoboHelp 11 and the WeHelp appears to display OK now. BUT, I have graphics in my project that are not displaying, only the empty placeholder for the graphics. This was displaying fine in WebHelp generated with RoboHelp 9 but not now. I see the graphics when I do “Preview Topic” but not in the generated WebHelp. Any clues what is causing this behavior? How can I correct it?
    My tables appear very strange too. They are the default table in RoboHelp with the raised gray/silver border. However, in WebHelp, the tables appear as double solid black lines for the border. The tables appear fine in the topic but when viewed via “Preview Topic” and WebHelp output, they are double black likes. Help!
    Another thing is that I also get an occasional message about a topic that says “The reference to the file  contains illegal characters and will not be shown in Project Manager. How can this be? My css is valid and I use it in numerous help projects.
    Once again, thanks so much for your willingness to help. It is much appreciated.

  • Table headings and column/row sizes

    I have mapped my FM table format to a table style defined in my CSS. However, I have the following issues with the resulting RoboHelp tables:
    I have a header row in the FrameMaker table, but the header doesn't come over into RH. All of the table rows are <td> instead of <th>. Therefore, the shading defined in my CSS for the table header row does not appear.
    A bunch of inline formatting that I don't want is coming over, defining the table width and the row width and height. Here's an example:
    <table class="formatA" cellspacing="0" width="600">
        <tr style="height: 18.00pt;">
            <td style="vertical-align: top; padding-left: 6.00pt; padding-top: 3.00pt;
                 padding-right: 6.00pt; padding-bottom: 3.00pt;" width="198"><p>Report/Visualization</p></td>
            <td style="vertical-align: top; padding-left: 6.00pt; padding-top: 3.00pt;
                 padding-right: 6.00pt; padding-bottom: 3.00pt;" width="402"><p>Description</p></td>
        </tr>
    Is there any way to get RH to recognize table header rows?
    Also, is there any way to prevent the size information from coming over? What I'd like is for the table width to be 100% and the cell widths and heights to be determined by their content (which would happen automatically if the inline formatting weren't added).
    If there isn't a way to accomplish this, then I'd probably be better off not trying to map the table styles and just going with "Source". The sizes would still be fixed, but at least the shading would appear.

    Forget FM for a moment. I think that if you create a table in RoboHelp using TH you will find  RoboHelp simply does not understand TH.
    The more people who report a bug or request a feature, the more likely it is to be actioned. Please follow this link.
    http://www.Adobe.com/cfusion/mmform/index.cfm?name=wishform&product=38
    See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips
    @petergrainge

  • Use of tables and style sheet

    Hi all,
    I am strungling using tables in RoboHelp HTML 7, to generate
    webhelp.
    What I try to accomplish is using tables in RH, and have its
    formatting defined in a style sheet. The html code generated by RH
    should be nice and clean. If possible I would not like to go into
    the HTML code, I prefer the use of the Design editor.
    I have the following in a new file in the RoboHelp table
    gallery:
    quote:
    <table>
    <caption>CAPTIONTITLE</caption>
    <COL style="width: 5%;">
    <COL style="width: 40%;">
    <thead>
    <tr><th></th><th></th></tr>
    </thead>
    <tbody>
    <tr><td></td><td></td></tr>
    <tr><td></td><td></td></tr>
    <tr><td></td><td></td></tr>
    <tr><td></td><td></td></tr>
    </tbody>
    </table>
    The following is in the CSS file:
    quote:
    table {
    border: 2px #c0c0c0 solid;
    border-collapse: collapse;
    width: "100%";
    margin: 10px;
    td, th {
    border: 1px #c0c0c0 solid;
    padding-left: 5px;
    padding-right: 10px;
    text-align: left;
    vertical-align: top;
    th {
    background: #ffc000;
    When I insert a table into a page, using the table file I
    created above, the html looks like:
    quote:
    <table x-use-null-cells>
    <col style="width: 33.333%;">
    <col style="width: 33.333%;">
    <col style="width: 33.333%;">
    <tr><td style="padding-right: 10px; padding-left:
    10px;" width=33.333%>
    <p> </td>
    <td style="padding-right: 10px; padding-left: 10px;"
    width=33.333%>
    <p> </td>
    <td style="padding-right: 10px; padding-left: 10px;"
    width=33.333%>
    <p> </td></tr>
    <tr><td style="padding-right: 10px; padding-left:
    10px;" width=33.333%>
    <p> </td>
    <td style="padding-right: 10px; padding-left: 10px;"
    width=33.333%>
    <p> </td>
    <td style="padding-right: 10px; padding-left: 10px;"
    width=33.333%>
    <p> </td></tr>
    <tr><td style="padding-right: 10px; padding-left:
    10px;" width=33.333%>
    <p> </td>
    <td style="padding-right: 10px; padding-left: 10px;"
    width=33.333%>
    <p> </td>
    <td style="padding-right: 10px; padding-left: 10px;"
    width=33.333%>
    <p> </td></tr>
    </table>
    So, RoboHelp adds a number of styles to the inserted table
    that overrules the style sheet. That shouldn't be done.
    Also, in the RoboHelp editor the table looks different than
    in the preview. That shouldn't be a big deal, but something is
    missing:
    - There's no table caption shown.
    - The background in the table header is not colored as I
    expected to be.
    To eliminate the behavior of RoboHelp with respect to the
    table gallery, I created a new page in RoboHelp, and opened the
    HTML view. I inserted the following to create a new table.
    quote:
    <table>
    <caption>CAPTIONTITLE</caption>
    <COL style="width: 5%;">
    <COL style="width: 40%;">
    <thead>
    <tr><th></th><th></th></tr>
    </thead>
    <tbody>
    <tr><td></td><td></td></tr>
    <tr><td></td><td></td></tr>
    <tr><td></td><td></td></tr>
    <tr><td></td><td></td></tr>
    </tbody>
    </table>
    When switching to Design view and bach to HTML, it has been
    converted by RoboHelp to:
    quote:
    <table x-use-null-cells>
    <col style="width: 5%;">
    <col style="width: 40%;">
    <caption>CAPTIONTITLE</caption>
    <tr><th style="width: 5%;" width=5%>
    <p> </th>
    <th style="width: 40%;" width=40%>
    <p> </th></tr>
    <tr><td style="width: 5%;" width=5%>
    <p> </td>
    <td style="width: 40%;" width=40%>
    <p> </td></tr>
    <tr><td style="width: 5%;" width=5%>
    <p> </td>
    <td style="width: 40%;" width=40%>
    <p> </td></tr>
    <tr><td style="width: 5%;" width=5%>
    <p> </td>
    <td style="width: 40%;" width=40%>
    <p> </td></tr>
    <tr><td style="width: 5%;" width=5%>
    <p> </td>
    <td style="width: 40%;" width=40%>
    <p> </td></tr>
    </table>
    That seems ok, there are no styles redefined, other that the
    width.
    In Design view the table looks different than intended,
    however in preview it is as expected. I shows the caption tile, and
    the background of the table header, and text alignment is correct
    (at the top of each cell).
    So, my interpretation is that RoboHelp messes up the nice and
    neat html code when using the table gallery, and does not show the
    table in Design view as it would like in the Preview.
    As a consequence I think I will copy and paste the table code
    into the html directly, rather than using the table gallery.
    Unless, there's a good solution by using the table gallery.
    It would also be nice that the Design view behaves as a
    WYSIWYG editor.
    Has anyone an idea how I can use tables in RoboHelp as easy
    as possible, while keeping the benefits of style sheets?
    TIA,
    Andre
    BTW, my excuses for using quotes rather than attach code, but
    it seemed all code was added to the end.

    You should avoid locking yourself into a single solution for
    anything to do with RH (or any other help authoring tool, for that
    matter). Whether dealing with lists, tables, or images (the three
    major areas that usually create problems), it's wise to strike a
    balance between the features and drawbacks in HTML, CSS, RH, and
    web browsers.
    Confronted with the issue of changing border colors and table
    heading colors earlier this year (and having to do this for the 42
    projects in our merged WebHelp project), I simply used
    FAR to change the hex numbered
    colors in the code, outside of RH (from #808080 to #d8e4f8, for
    example). Some freeware products for content replacement are also
    available.
    If you've used those colors for other things, such as H1/H2,
    or other backgrounds, etc., you'll need to identify all table uses
    first, and then change only those instances. You could then set up
    a batch file to change all border-right-color: #808080;
    border-left-color: #808080; etc. all at once
    You could also just use the RH Multi-File Find & Replace
    if you're only dealing with a few projects, since these table
    attributes are likely to always appear as complete on a single line
    (the RH feature doesn't handle search and replace strings
    interrupted by line breaks and multiple spaces).
    All of our tables had been created using Rick's solution via
    the Table Gallery, and the background and border colors show up
    identically in Design, Preview, and output views. The only use of
    the css for our tables is the styling of the actual text that
    appears in the cells (TableHead, TableRow, TableSubHead), such as
    shown in the attached code below.
    BTW, another look at your original post shows that your claim
    that "RoboHelp adds a number of styles to the inserted table that
    overrules the style sheet," is not quite on the mark. The only
    change is that the
    "padding-left:" value has been increased from the CSS 5px to
    10px. I would guess that you have a 5px indent in either your BODY
    or P tag in the CSS, thereby resulting in the value being increased
    to the total of 10px.
    Good luck,
    Leon

  • Need left cell padding in tables

    Does anyone know how to add left padding to table cells so
    the text does not jam into the left table ruling?
    I have padding specified in all my table formats, but all the
    resulting tables have no left cell padding.
    I tried adding extra padding to the paragraph tag in the
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    Of course, I do NOT want to hand edit all my tables in
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    This is strictly a single-source project.
    Outside of that, the tables are coming through pretty nicely.
    But that crammed look kind of spoils things.

    Thanks Jain.
    I can see by your reply that I
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    - editing table, row, or cell formats in CSS.
    - Or adding padding in the Table Designer in FrameMaker.
    - Or adding extra cell margin in Paragraph Designer/ Table
    Cell tab.
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    Design a special FM template for RoboHelp.
    Import this template into FrameMaker before moving the files
    into RoboHelp.
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    Once the files are in Robohelp, in RoboHelp Style
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    It does not very long to design (maybe an hour).
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    I can edit all my paragraph tags, character tags, and table
    styles at once
    (for instance, body text uses a san-serif font).
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    styles as [Source].
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    Cheryl B in Las Vegas's unanswered posting, "vertical
    alignment in tables"
    RoboHelp's "center" setting of the vertical alignment of
    table cell text looks funky.
    We need "Top".
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  • How can I get the last occurrence of a repeated item in Numbers

    Hi everyone, I'm hoping this question has a straightforward answer.
    I have a simple 2-column table (Table 1). Column A is a list of names. Column B is a list of dates where those names have had appointments. (Most names in Column A are repeated because they have had multiple appointments).
    I'd like to create an automated table based Table 1 that lists each name from Column A only once, with the last appointment that each person has had.
    Any ideas, I'd be grateful.
    Thanks!

    Hi Paul,
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