Tables

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Word Processing I >>
Tables

Tables can be used to organize the layout of in your documents. You can shade certain cells (a cell is one square within your table), modify borders, orient text within cells to be horizontal or vertical, sort text within tables alphabetically, and even sum amounts.

For your assignment, you will create a table that looks like the following:

To begin,

go to the Table menu
click Insert Table to get the following window:

Enter "2" for the number of columns and "5" for the number of rows
Click OK. A table will appear in your document. You may insert the same text shown in the demo table above or use different titles, names, and numbers.
First, to modify the table borders, you must view the "Tables and Borders" toolbar, which looks like the following:

Each button on the toolbar is labeled for reference in this lesson.

Buttons A (draw table) and B (eraser) work like an on/off switch. When pressed, your pointer will turn into either the pencil or eraser, depending on which button you chose. The pencil allows you to draw tables or format lines in tables.
Section C on the above toolbar is a drop-down menu, which allows you to choose a line style. This could be solid, dotted, dashed, etc.
Section D is also a drop-down menu. This one allows you to choose the thickness of your table borders. To access each drop-down menu, click on the small down arrow to the right of each one.
Section E determines the colour you want your borders to be.
Section F is a drop-down menu for choosing what borders you want appearing in your table.
Section G is a drop-down menu for choosing a colour background to fill your cells. We will work with this first half of the toolbar buttons to change the borders within your table.

Please perform the following to make your table appear like the one at the top of this page. To change the outside borders to a thick line,

have a solid line selected from Section C
choose "1 1/2" for line width from Section D
click on the "draw table" button in Section A to turn your cursor into a pencil.
trace the outside lines of your table by clicking and dragging the pencil around it. You should "trace" this line and not drag the pencil any further or it will create new cells in your existing table.
to undo any changes, go to the "Edit" menu and click "Undo."
another way to change the outside border of the table is to select the table, set the line style and width, then click on the button in Section F to apply that line to the outside border.

To change the center line in your table to a dotted line,

select a dotted line from the drop-down menu in Section C.
make the thickness 1/2 pt in the drop-down menu shown in Section D.
click on the "draw table" button A (if it is not selected already) to turn your cursor into a pencil.
move this pencil to the top of the center line, then click and drag it over the existing line to change it to a dotted line.
click the button A again to put away the pencil and return to using your pointer.

Next, you want to fill the top two boxes with a colour.

select these two cells by dragging your pointer across it.
go to the "shading colour" button in Section G
choose a colour from the drop-down menu and click the button to colour the two cells. Make sure the colour is light enough so that the black text will show up.

Enter three names in the three left boxes. You will need to make these names appear in alphabetical order,

select the three cells you want sorted
then click on the button in Section Q of the toolbar
button R would sort the names in reverse alphabetical order

In the right column, enter some numbers for each name. You will need to total these numbers,

click once in the cell you want the total to appear in
click on the "AutoSum" button, appearing in Section S of the toolbar. A total will appear for you.
Note that if you change any of the three numbers that were added after the total was summed, the total will not change unless you update that field. To do this, right-click once on top of the total sum (or click and hold for Mac users) to get the following pop-up window:

Select "Update Field" and click OK to get a new total.

The following buttons on the toolbar will not be required for the assignment, but feel free to explore these features and incorporate them into your table:

Section H and I are used to merge and split cells in your table.
Section J, K, and L in the toolbar are used to set the vertical alignment of the text or images within your cells.
Section M and N are used to distribute cells evenly either vertically or horizontally.
Section O contains the button for "Table AutoFormat" which contains some table styles that can be applied to your table automatically.
Section P allows you to change the direction of text within cells from horizontal to vertical.

You have completed the section on tables, please continue to the last lesson on Headers and Footers.