As an exercise, I'm trying to replicate the table shown at the end of section 10.3 (Creating Embedded Components) of the Maple User Manual, the table on page 308 of the PDF, reproduced here:

I create a 6 x 3 table, and merge cells of columns 1 and 2 in each of rows 1, 2, 5 and 6, and proceed to enter the text and components from the Embedded Components example 2 to look as above. In column 3, I merge the cells in rows 2, 3, 4, 5 in order to place the plot component as shown. The new cell seems to be considered as in the same row as its top merged cell, in this case, row 2.

I can't control vertical positioning in the plot cell in column 3. If I select the vertical alignment for the plot cell (which sets the same vertical alignment for all of row 2), to Centre or Bottom or Baseline, the alignment is to the centre or bottom or baseline of row 2, not of the plot cell. So when I paste the plot into the cell it extends up from the Centre or Bottom or Baseline of row 2, to well above the table's top border.

If instead I set the vertical alignment to Top, then the pasted plot fits into the cell since the top of the plot now aligns with the top of row 2. But that can be an annoying restriction. Also, I am no longer allowed to set the vertical alignment in rows 3, 4 or 5 because of the merged cell in column 3.

Maple document tables need to have two improvements:

1. The ability to adjust vertical centring in a single cell (merged or not), instead of just across a row.
2. The ability to resize row height. Currently it looks like document tables only allow resizing column width.

I guess my question is mainly, is there a better way to go about setting up a document table in order to control fairly precisely how it appears? And to get around some of these formatting restrictions?

It's been a couple of years since I last used the Excel add-in for Maple 17. It was working before, but now it isn't.

When I click any of the Maple icons in the Excel Add-Ins -> Custom Toolbars tab, I get a Visual Basic run-time error 453, "Can't find DLL entry point vbLoadMapleCursor in WMIMPLEX". The only choice in the dialogue is End, after which none of the Maple icons respond.

When I quit Excel after trying this, I get the same error dialogue except the message refers to vbMapleQuit. I select End, and then Excel exits. (If I don't touch the Maple icons during an Excel session, then of course no VB error dialogue referring to Maple pops up.)

An answer to a ten year old MaplePrimes question on the Excel add-in suggests editing the Excel 2010 32-bit path registry entry. Indeed my HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\App Paths\Excel.exe Path key has no reference to Maple. However that info is so old, for Maple 9.5, that I hesitate to use it. I tried though. As suggested in that question, updated for Maple 17, I tried adding ";C:\Program Files (x86)\Maple 17\Excel\" to the end of the existing Path key entry, but I still get the same VB error. I also tried adding ";C:\Program Files (x86)\Maple 17\bin.win\", and both: "C:\Program Files (x86)\Maple 17\bin.win\;C:\Program Files (x86)\Maple 17\Excel\". I tried disabling and reloading the add-in from the Excel Add-Ins menu. Interestingly, even when I disable the add-in, the toolbar icons still show.

Anyway I'm at a loss how to proceed. Any help is appreciated. --Graham