By: Michael Murphy
May 11 2006 • 10:46 PM
Show Notes for Episode 20
In the last part of the Table series, I wanted to include — but couldn’t for timing reasons — information about a couple of great table utilities for InDesign. One is a $24.95 shareware script called PopTabFmClip.js (short for Populate Table From Clipboard) which will paste updated data into a pre-formatted table and preserve the formatting. The other is a more expensive (but proportionally more powerful) $299 plug-in from Teacup Software called Table & Cell Styles Pro that adds Paragraph/Character/Object Style formatting capabilities to Tables, maintains dynamic links back to the origonal data source, and more.
dude
you are the man. I am a junior in college and would of never of
learned any of this if it wasn’t for you. Thanks! ps add a donate
button
Thanks, Matt. Funny you should
mention a “donate” button. Right now, the podcast isn’t costing me
anything more than my time (a lot of it, granted, but just time). But
I’ve been thinking about the day when the number of downloads (which
keeps increasing) starts to exceed my hosting limits. When I get to
that point, I will post a “donate” button that applies any and all
donations directly to my hosting bill. But thanks for the support!
You
have inspired me to use “Tables” now with my car ads.You make such a
complex subject easy to understand. Thank you Michael for sharing.
Congradulations on the certified indesign expert title that you won
or passed, hope this will bring a lot of possitive things to your
carrier as a designer.?r?nThat donate button is something you should
definetly add in the near future, but don’t direct the funds to the
hosting bill, i’m sure people would like to thank you for your
wonderfull training videos and not your hosting providers
You couldn’t post the table thing at a better time. I do
mainly lo- and no-budget designing for people barley knowing the
difference between a wordprocessor and a computer. Therefore i got
not a lot experience in tableing. But just now i got a lot of tables
made in a wordprocessor. To line up the columns sometime a tab is
used, sometimes multicpaces; A nightmare.?r?n?r?nWith your clear
explanation i can design a interesting layout instead of just lots
and lots of dull looking tables. Even with my lack of experience. And
still there wil be a little time left to reformat those ill formated
texts. Thank you!?r?n?r?np.s.?r?nThere is no ‘at least’ for the
width of a cell i presume? I would use it to snugfit a cell border
around an image
Here’s a “group thank you” to the
past few comments. I haven’t been as able to respond individually,
since I’m attending the InDesign Conference in Chicago and don’t
have an all-day connection to the web. But I’m so glad to hear that
so many people have taken to the idea of Tables. They’ve transformed
how I think about presenting information on the page, and
transforming how you think is the key to creativity. Keep going
people, design some great tables…and have fun while you’re doing
it!
Responding specifically to the
“there is no ‘at least’ option for cell width” comment…?r?n?r?nAt
first, that one threw me, too…but table DEPTH is where people are
far more comfortable being flexible than they are with table WIDTH.
While an At Least option might be helpful with graphics in a table,
think of the chaos that would ensue with cells that contain only
text. If the text goes more than one line, how does InDesign know
whether to wrap it or expand the width of the cell? As with many
features that make me scratch my head a bit in InDesign, when I
REALLY think about why they work the way they do, the logic is pretty
strong.
Enjoyed the podcast Mike…?r?n?r?na few table
questions…?r?n?r?nIs there a good way to paste text into cells in a
table and preserve the formatting of the table??r?n?r?nI have a
several tables I use once a week, and update them with new
information, everytime I paste the new info, I have to go through and
set all my cell formatting, tabs and things like that.?r?n?r?nAlso,
is there a way to change the text attributes for several cells at
once, besides using styles??r?n?r?nSometimes I will need to change a
row of cells to have white text instead of black, and can find no
easier way to do this than clicking on each cell and changing it.
1) Yes. There’s a great (and
cheap) way to paste text into cells and preserve the formatting of
the table. It’s not perfect — especially if you’ve got merged
cells and a lot of specific manual formatting and overrides applied
to the table you’re pasting into — but if you’re just updating
info, it’s the right solution for you. It’s exactly what I mention
in these show notes — the $25.95 shareware script PopTabFmClip.js.
Follow the link in the original post and you’ll see what I
mean.?r?n?r?n2) You can change multiple cells with the exact same
level of control that you do with any other text in your file
(well…maybe not setting tabs…but NEARLY all other options are
available). If you select a range of cells, go to the Swatches
palette and first click the “T” icon at the top (to indicate that
you’re applying the swatch to the text and not the fill of the
cell), then select the appropriate color swatch. It’s that
simple.?r?n?r?nHope that helps.
ahh,
very cool, thanks. Guess I should consult the show notes first next
time…
I see what you mean. I was trying to make a box for a
picture with text underneath. For now i use a construction with a
graphic-box and a textbox. Scaling the graphicbox will overlap the
textbox when i do not group them. Grouped, also the textbox
scales.?r?n?r?nThen starting to use tables i thougt of a table one
column wide two rows high. Top cell containing the graphic, botom one
containing text. But as you explained, indesign probably just
stretches the table width when the text is wider then te picture.
Well i slap om my thinking hat again…
Michael, I have tried a few of the tips you gave, I had no problem
with the object placed inside a cell to give the row a rounded
look.?r?n?r?nI do have issues with the “anchored object” one however.
I paste a graphic in, and go to anchor object options, but can not
get the same results you did, can you explain what you did to set the
first graphic.?r?n?r?nI also do not get the dotted line that
references the insertion point, must be doing something
wrong…?r?n?r?nIm unfamiliar with anchored objects and do not use
them much.
Im
talking about the tip with the arrow objects that point to the next
cell, and when I say graphic, I mean arrow object…?r?n?r?nThanks.
Adam –?r?nThat’s the problem
with combining different features in one podcast. If you’re trying
to keep it concise, one feature (in this case Tables) always shortchanges
the other (i.e. Anchored Objects). Anchored objects can be a tricky
beast until you get the general concept. And to get exactly what you
want, you often have to tweak all of the settings in the Anchored
Objects dialog box until you find that sweet spot.?r?nI am quite
literally running between sessions at the Creative Suite Conference,
so I can’t go into great detail right this second, but I will
address this by tonight if I can.?r?nIn the meantime, can you let me
know which specific result you didn’t get in your attempt. You
mention “the first graphic” — but in which example, and which
graphic? That’ll go a long way toward helping me answer your
question.?r?n?r?nMichael
ha,
you must have been answering me before I got the rest out, once I
reread my question I realized it was kind of vague. Hope the second
part of the post clarified it for you.?r?n?r?nThanks for your quick
response…
The thing about Anchored Objects
is that, by default, they are placed in your text as “inline”
objects, meaning that their position is related primarily to the
baseline of the text into which you pasted it. This will rarely get
you the result you want if what you want is something that doesn’t
look obviously like an Anchored Object. What you want to do is
Control-click (or right-click) on the object after you paste it in
and choose Anchored Object –> Options.?r?n?r?nIn the resulting
dialog, you want to switch from Inline to Custom. In the Custom
dialog, de-select “Prevent Manual Positioning” and then just click
OK. You’ll probably see that your object has changed position when
you do that. But since it’s now a Custom object with Manual
Positioning enabled, you can just click and drag it wherever you want
it positioned relative to you text, frame or page.?r?n?r?nThis method
is a lot easier than trying to figure out the intricacies of the
Anchored Object Options dialog if you’re just trying this out for
yourself. However, if you really want to take advantage of Anchored
Objects, I suggest you read the section on that topic in the User
Guide, which is how I finally figured out how to crack these cryptic
options. It’s actually quite clear and makes good sense of the
topic.?r?n?r?nOnce you have the first object the way you want — and
you’ve done it intuitively by dragging it around, which is a good
way for designers to work — just select it with the text tool (NOT
any of the selection tools), copy it, and paste it into the next
location in the next text frame (or somewhere else within the same
text frame).?r?n?r?nThat’s the fast and entirely shallow explanation
of this topic. I make no claims about this being in any way thorough,
but I think it should answer your question.?r?n?r?nAs for not seeing
the dashed line as you move the object around, shame on me for not
mentioning that you can only see that line when you’ve already
chosen Show Text Threads from the View menu.?r?n?r?nI hope this helps
get you started, but you should definitely read the small section in
the User Guide about Anchored Objects. It should help you understand
the full scope of your options.?r?n?r?nMichael
Cool, good stuff. Thanks for your help. How did the Creative Suite
conference go? Pick up any new tricks?