diff --git a/core/src/processing/core/PApplet.java b/core/src/processing/core/PApplet.java
index e77a217af..b0f83ab57 100755
--- a/core/src/processing/core/PApplet.java
+++ b/core/src/processing/core/PApplet.java
@@ -6249,22 +6249,28 @@ public class PApplet extends Applet
 
 
   /**
-   * @param options may contain "header", "tsv", "csv", or "bin" separated by commas
+   * Options may contain "header", "tsv", "csv", or "bin" separated by commas.
+   *
+   * Another option is "dictionary=filename.tsv", which allows users to
+   * specify a "dictionary" file that contains a mapping of the column titles
+   * and the data types used in the table file. This can be far more efficient
+   * (in terms of speed and memory usage) for loading and parsing tables. The
+   * dictionary file can only be tab separated values (.tsv) and its extension
+   * will be ignored. This option was added in Processing 2.0.2.
    */
   public Table loadTable(String filename, String options) {
     try {
-//      String ext = checkExtension(filename);
-//      if (ext != null) {
-//        if (ext.equals("csv") || ext.equals("tsv") || ext.equals("bin")) {
-//          if (options == null) {
-//            options = ext;
-//          } else {
-//            options = ext + "," + options;
-//          }
-//        }
-//      }
-      return new Table(createInput(filename),
-                       Table.extensionOptions(true, filename, options));
+      String optionStr = Table.extensionOptions(true, filename, options);
+      String[] optionList = split(optionStr, ',');
+
+      Table dictionary = null;
+      for (String opt : optionList) {
+        if (opt.startsWith("dictionary=")) {
+          dictionary = loadTable(opt.substring(opt.indexOf('=') + 1), "tsv");
+          return dictionary.typedParse(createInput(filename), optionStr);
+        }
+      }
+      return new Table(createInput(filename), optionStr);
 
     } catch (IOException e) {
       e.printStackTrace();
diff --git a/core/src/processing/data/Table.java b/core/src/processing/data/Table.java
index 744c98f7f..a91b088b8 100644
--- a/core/src/processing/data/Table.java
+++ b/core/src/processing/data/Table.java
@@ -119,6 +119,7 @@ public class Table {
    */
   public Table(File file, String options) throws IOException {
     // uses createInput() to handle .gz (and eventually .bz2) files
+    init();
     parse(PApplet.createInput(file),
           extensionOptions(true, file.getName(), options));
   }
@@ -146,9 +147,11 @@ public class Table {
    * @throws IOException
    */
   public Table(InputStream input, String options) throws IOException {
+    init();
     parse(input, options);
   }
 
+
   /**
    * @nowebref
    */
@@ -210,6 +213,14 @@ public class Table {
   }
 
 
+  public Table typedParse(InputStream input, String options) throws IOException {
+    Table table = new Table();
+    table.setColumnTypes(this);
+    table.parse(input, options);
+    return table;
+  }
+
+
   protected void init() {
     columns = new Object[0];
     columnTypes = new int[0];
@@ -272,7 +283,7 @@ public class Table {
 
 
   protected void parse(InputStream input, String options) throws IOException {
-    init();
+    //init();
 
     boolean awfulCSV = false;
     boolean header = false;
@@ -302,6 +313,8 @@ public class Table {
           header = true;
         } else if (opt.startsWith(sheetParam)) {
           worksheet = opt.substring(sheetParam.length());
+        } else if (opt.startsWith("dictionary=")) {
+          // ignore option, this is only handled by PApplet
         } else {
           throw new IllegalArgumentException("'" + opt + "' is not a valid option for loading a Table");
         }
@@ -352,9 +365,9 @@ public class Table {
           row++;
         }
 
-      /*
-      // this is problematic unless we're going to calculate rowCount first
-      if (row % 10000 == 0) {
+        // this is problematic unless we're going to calculate rowCount first
+        if (row % 10000 == 0) {
+        /*
         if (row < rowCount) {
           int pct = (100 * row) / rowCount;
           if (pct != prev) {  // also prevents "0%" from showing up
@@ -362,14 +375,15 @@ public class Table {
             prev = pct;
           }
         }
-        try {
-          Thread.sleep(5);
-        } catch (InterruptedException e) {
-          e.printStackTrace();
+         */
+          try {
+            // Sleep this thread so that the GC can catch up
+            Thread.sleep(10);
+          } catch (InterruptedException e) {
+            e.printStackTrace();
+          }
         }
       }
-      */
-      }
     } catch (Exception e) {
       throw new RuntimeException("Error reading table on line " + row, e);
     }
diff --git a/core/todo.txt b/core/todo.txt
index 458e555d8..40732ddaf 100644
--- a/core/todo.txt
+++ b/core/todo.txt
@@ -70,7 +70,11 @@ _   draw(s) doesn't work on the returned PShape
 
 table
 X add sort() to Table
-_ implement version of Table that takes a dictionary file
+X implement version of Table that takes a dictionary file
+X   dictionary=blah.tsv 
+X   tsv only, ignores extension
+X   if allowed extension, we couldn't use .dict instead
+X   and that's probably the most useful
 _ addRow() is not efficient, probably need to do the doubling
 _   or have a setIncrement() function?
 _   it would default to 1 on tables loaded from a file