.
With this frame selected and the Type Tool active, click on 'Table/Insert Table'.
This gives you the following dialogue box:
Any information that needs to be laid out in a 'grid' format can be put into an 'In Design' table. Table contents are usually textual, but may also include images. Control of tables and their contents is similar to that available in packages such as Microsoft Word, although the interface is somewhat different.
To create a blank table into which you can place text or images, first generate
an empty text frame using the Type Tool .
With this frame selected and the Type Tool active, click on 'Table/Insert Table'.
This gives you the following dialogue box:
Select the number of rows and columns required and click 'OK'. A table will be created which fills the width of the text frame:
By default, all columns are the same width, and the rows are of a height suitable for 12 pt text. The border is of 1 pt thickness. Type text into the table as required:
To adjust the height of a single row or the width of a single column, select the Type Tool and hover over a horizontal or vertical line. The cursor changes to an up/down or left/right arrow, and you can click-and-drag the line into place. Other rows or columns are unaffected, so the overall height or width of the table will change.
To adjust the height of multiple rows or the width of multiple columns, use the Type Tool to select the rows/columns you want to change, then open the Table Palette by clicking 'Window/Type-and-Tables/Table'.
This palette allows you to control row height and column width, as well as text orientation and text alignment.
In the Table Palette, click on the arrow at the top right and select 'Cell Options/Strokes-and-Fills'. This gives the following control:
Set the weight, line type and colour of the selected cells here. The colour of the background may also be altered.
Again, use the arrow at the top right of the Table Palette to select options to merge two or more cells together or split one cell either horizontally or vertically.
Text contained within a table can be converted into ordinary text, or ordinary text may be turned into a table. The controls to do this are under the 'Table' menu. Text extracted from a table will have the cell data separated by 'tab' characters, and new rows indicated by newlines. The table shown above would appear thus: (tabs and newlines made visible for clarity)
Similarly, if existing text is to be converted into a table, the items must be separated by tabs and newlines in the same way.
In both cases, select the cells/text to be converted before applying the conversion.
'In Design' is able to import tables from other applications which support them, including Microsoft Word and Excel.
Proceed as if placing a text file (see 'Getting text on to a page'). If the file selected for import is a table or contains a table, this will be laid out more or less as it was in the original document.
When placing an Excel spreadsheet, the following dialogue box will appear (make sure 'Show Import Options' is ticked in the Place dialogue box):
In most cases the default options will be adequate here, but as you can see, it is possible to specify at this stage the sheet number, cell range and text alignment of the imported table.
Occasionally, when placing an external table, some cells will appear to contain only a red dot:
This indicates that there is not enough vertical or horizontal space in the cell for the required text/image. To rectify this, increase the height of the appropriate row and/or the width of the appropriate column.
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