Editing Tables

In addition to simply clicking in cells and typing text, there are several ways that you can edit tables after inserting them.

• Regular Stylesheets Read more… You can modify the look and feel of multiple tables at once by editing standard HTML table styles (e.g., table, th, td, tr) in your regular stylesheet. For example, you might use these styles in order to control the look of the text that appears in your table headings (th style) or within the cells (td style). See Editing Table Styles in Regular Stylesheets.

• Table Stylesheets Read more… You can modify the look and feel of multiple tables at once by editing the properties in a custom table stylesheet. These table stylesheets let you easily and quickly create patterns and different looks for tables.

• Cell Content Style Read more… When you insert a table, it is set up by default to use standard table tags in the individual cells (e.g., <th> for table headers, <td> for regular table text). However, if you press ENTER at the end of a line, a <p> tag is added within the standard tag. Therefore, in order to keep all of the content in your table cells looking consistent, there are a couple of things you can do. First, if you are editing table styles in a regular stylesheet, you can create advanced selectors (e.g., "td p"). Second, you may want to create a special style class of the p style to be used for table content (e.g., p.tabletext) and apply that style to all of your cells when you first create a table. You can manually apply specific styles to tables by selecting the table cells, clicking Table > Cell Content Style, and choosing the style to be used for those cells. However, rather than repeating all these steps each time you create a table, the easiest way to accomplish this is to set a default cell content style. You can do this in a couple of ways: globally or using a table stylesheet. See Selecting Styles for Table Cell Contents and Editing Table Stylesheets.

• Breaks—Page, Column, Frame Read more… You can set page, column, and frame breaks on tables using a couple of different options. In regular stylesheets, you can set breaks on the standard HTML table tags. The most common approach for page breaks is to set them on table rows through the tr style. Another option is that you can set breaks on rows (and on entire tables) through a table stylesheet. And because you can create patterns in table stylesheets, each pattern item might have different settings for breaks. See Setting Page, Column, and Frame Breaks on Tables.
• Converting to Text Read more… If you have a table containing text, you can remove the table but keep the text. When doing this, you can choose how the converted text should be represented: paragraphs, separated with commas, separated with text. See Converting Tables to Text. You can also convert text to a table (see Converting Text to Tables).
• Cutting Columns and Rows Read more… You can cut entire columns and rows in a table. When you do this, a paste icon displays after the table. This icon lets you specify how you would like to handle the content when you cut the columns or rows. You can also set the default behavior for similar actions in the future. See Cutting Table Columns and Rows.
• Deleting Tables Read more… You can delete a table from a document or topic. See Deleting Tables.
• Inserting Rows and Columns Read more… You can easily insert additional rows and columns into an existing table. You can insert one row or column at a time, or you can insert multiple rows or columns. See Inserting Table Columns and Rows.
• Merging Table Cells Read more… You can turn multiple cells in a table into one big cell. This is called "merging" cells. You can merge any number of rows and columns in a table, as long as they are adjacent to one another. See Merging Table Cells.
• Merging Tables Read more… If you have two tables in a document or topic that are positioned one after the other, you can merge those tables so that they become one. You can do this by using the icon that may appear to the right of the tables. See Merging Tables.
• Moving Table Columns and Rows Read more… You can move columns and rows around in a table that you have inserted by dragging and dropping the structure bars. You can also move table rows by using keyboard shortcuts. See Moving Table Columns and Rows.
• Pasting Cells Within a Table Read more… You can copy cells from one table to another. If you copy cells from a table, then place your cursor within a single table cell and paste the contents, a paste icon displays to the right. This icon lets you specify how you would like to handle the pasted cells. You can also set the default behavior for similar actions in the future. See Pasting Cells Within a Table.
• Resetting Local Cell Formatting Read more… If you have applied local formatting to a table (e.g., applying background shading to cells directly, not through the use of styles), you can easily remove it. This is possible even if the topic was previously saved and closed. See Resetting Local Cell Formatting.
• Resizing Tables  Read more… You can change the height and width of tables by applying an absolute or relative unit of measurement. You can also change the size of tables and individual rows and columns by clicking and dragging the edges of the table bars. See Resizing Tables.
• Rounded Borders Read more… For Contribution and New Document workflows, you can use CSS3 border-radius style properties to create rounded borders on tables. See Creating Rounded Borders on Paragraphs.
• Selecting Tables  Read more… If you've inserted a table, you can select the different parts of it—cells, rows, columns, entire table. See Selecting Tables.
• Sorting Tables Read more… You can sort a table by selecting an option from the Table ribbon at the top of the interface or from table context menus. Tables can be sorted using a simple or more advanced method. See Sorting Tables.
• Splitting Table Cells Read more… You can turn one cell in a table into many smaller cells by splitting the cell. When you split a cell, you are essentially inserting a smaller table into that cell. See Splitting Table Cells.
• Table Cell Properties Read more… After a table is inserted into a document or topic, you can easily change the properties for cells within that table. This includes changing the borders, text alignment, hyphenation, background, and more. See Editing Table Cell Properties.
• Table Properties Read more… After a table is inserted into a document or topic, you can easily change the properties of that table. This includes changing the number of columns and cells, the style associated with the table, alignment, borders, and more. See Editing Table Properties.