chapter 5: tables
For maximum control over object
placement, tables help organize elements in columns and rows. For example,
if I wanted to have a block of text appear directly to the side of an
image, I would be unable to by just using the right/left/center justification
buttons. The image would only appear like so
in the middle of a line of text, creating a very awkward flow of text.
To arrange this in a more pleasing manner, we should arrange the elements so that the image is in one column and the text is in another column directly next to it. To create a table, click the Insert Table button. The following dialogue appears with the following defaults:
For this particular table, we want one row and two columns. The width value makes it take up a certain percentage of the screen, but generally I delete this value and let the table size itself based on its contents. The table below has a border thickness of 1 and the border color is black. Hit OK and your table is created.
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Select the first cell in the table and insert the image there. Hit Tab to begin typing in the next cell. When you're organizing the layout of your page, if you realise you need more columns or rows, click the extreme corner of the table (your cursor should become an arrow pointing in all 4 directions) and the table properties should appear. Edit either the Rows or Cols field to increase the number of cells. |
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To select a particular cell in a table, move your mouse to the top border of the table until you see a black arrow pointing downward. When you click, the cell will be selected and its properties will appear down below. If you want to split a cell into a number of rows or columns, you can do that when the cell is selected by clicking the cell split button pictured to the right. |
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Enter the way you want to split that cell (into columns or rows) and into how many rows or columns you want to split it into. This table contains four rows and three columns. Merging cells (directly to the split button's left) does the reverse, but is only active when 2 or more cells are selected. For example, this cell appears to occupy the entire width of the table because it is actually spanning all three columns in the table. The upper two cells where the text lies are spanning two columns, with the third reserved for image placement. The CellPadding and CellSpace options allow you to enter numbers that affect the appearance of the table and how close together items in the table appear. |
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| There are a variety of colour options as they apply to various regions of the table. The colour selection process is the same as for coloured backgrounds and coloured text. | ||