Tables Posts

Books wrote: Is it possible to split a table into two seperate tables in order to change the setup? Or is it that once I created only one table I can’t undo it? I tried finding a break charecter with no luck.

Last year we looked at how to merge two tables together, but you bring up a good point: What if we want to split a table into two or more pieces? It seems like there should be some command to do this, but there isn’t. Instead, we again turn to…

Two attributes of table cells have a long history in the web design field: “cellpadding” (equivalent to InDesign’s “cell inset” or “text frame inset”) and “cellspacing,” which is the amount of space in between the cells. This HTML Code Tutorial page has a decent explanation of the two, with illustrations.

As far as I know, no page layout program with a Table function has a cell spacing feature, including InDesign. So whenever I hear someone ask

When you insert a table into a text frame (Table > Insert Table) , by default the table’s width exactly matches the text frame’s width. But as anyone who’s worked with InDesign tables knows, the two measures are actually independent. If you drag a side handle of a text frame, the table stays the same [...]

Mercier wrote: Is there a way without using indent to align table text in a column on “,” or “.”

Absolutely! InDesign’s tables are sneaky because they pay attention to tab stops even if you don’t have a tab stop…

Is this Cell Height season or something? Suddenly I’m receiving lots of requests for help in dealing with overset table cells. David is as well, as you can see from his recent post, “Hidden Limits of Table Cell Heights.”

David’s story was about the default Maximum Table Cell Height in Cell Options, but the questions I’ve [...]

Susie wrote:
Can I do a full depth table in A4? It seems to be limiting me to 21.1 cms
Susie, it’s easy to do a table as long as an A4 page… as long as there are more than one row. But I’m guessing you’re wanting a single row to be taller than 21.1 cms or [...]

InDesign’s table cells are odd little things. They look like empty spaces surrounded by enclosing frame edges, which are what empty text frames look like, right? And you can click inside then with the Type tool and add text, just like text frames.

But, unlike normal text frames, you can’t click on table cells with the Selection tool and get resize handles, and more to the point, you can’t make an individual cell show a “normal” text frame’s inport and outport boxes (those little guys upper left and lower right that you use to thread one frame to another). In fact you can’t select a table cell with the Selection tool at all — you always use the Type tool, that’s InDesign 101. (Or maybe 201).

So if you need to text to automatically flow from one cell to another, but you can’t thread the cells together, what should you do?

A lot of new InDesign users (or experienced InDesign users new to working with tables) think that the only way to customize table fills and strokes is via those monstrous Table Options and Cell Options dialog boxes that you access via the Table menu or the Table palette menu.

After all, they have entire panels dedicated to Fill and Strokes of table elements. But unless you need a table-centric sort of feature (like Alternating Fill Color), you can just use the palettes you’re familiar with, like Swatches, Stroke and the Control palette.

Sharon wrote: Is there any way to merge two tables into a single table?
The bad news is that there is no way to merge two tables together in InDesign. The good news is that you can do it outside of InDesign! The trick? Tagged text.

Tagged text is an often-overlooked feature in InDesign, but it lets you do all kinds of cool things to text. You can think of tagged text as being like HTML: It’s a way to describe text formatting using codes. [...]

For a recent client project, page layout pro and InDesign scripting guru Dave Saunders wrote five separate Javascripts to help fit table elements to the text they contain. He generously posted a link to the scripts (I’ll add the link further down) on the Blueworld InDesign Talk mailing list for others to use, and I hope he doesn’t mind me writing about them here!

The bi-platform, InDesign CS2-only scripts are: