Format tables

Use the Control panel or Character panel to format text within a table—just like formatting text outside a table. In addition, two main dialog boxes help you format the table itself: Table Options and Cell Options. Use these dialog boxes to change the number of rows and columns, to change the appearance of the table border and fill, to determine the spacing above and below the table, to edit header and footer rows, and to add other table formatting.

Use the Table panel, the Control panel, or the context menu to format the table structure. Select one or more cells and then right-click (Windows) or Control-click (Mac OS) to display a context menu with table options.

Resize columns, rows, and tables

You can resize columns, rows, and tables using a number of different methods.

Resize columns and rows

By default, row height is determined by the slug height of the current font. Thus, row height also changes if you change the point size of type for entire rows of text, or if you change the row height setting. The maximum row height is determined by the Maximum setting in the Rows And Columns section of the Cell Options dialog box.

Resize rows or columns without changing the table width

• Hold down Shift while dragging an inside row or column edge (not the table boundary). One row or column gets bigger as the other gets smaller.
• To resize rows or columns proportionally, hold down Shift while dragging the right table border or bottom table edge.

Holding down Shift while dragging the right table edge will resize all the columns proportionally; holding down Shift while dragging the bottom table edge will resize all rows proportionally.

Resize the entire table

Distribute columns and rows evenly

Change the spacing before or after a table

Note that changing the spacing before the table does not affect the spacing of a table row that falls at the top of a frame.

Break tables across frames

Use Keep options to determine how many rows should remain together, or to specify where a row breaks, such as at the top of a column or frame.

When you create a table that is taller than the frame in which it resides, the frame is overset. If you thread the frame to another frame, the table continues in that frame. Rows move into threaded frames one at a time—you can’t break a single row across multiple frames. Specify header or footer rows to repeat information in the new frame.

Add text before a table

A table is anchored to the paragraphs that immediately precede and follow it. If you insert a table at the beginning of the text frame, you can’t click above the table to place an insertion point. Instead, use the arrow keys to move the insertion point before the table.

Format text within a table

In general, use the same methods to format text in a table that you would use to format text that’s not in a table.

Insert tabs into a table cell

When the insertion point is in a table, pressing Tab moves the insertion point to the next cell. However, you can insert a tab within a table cell. Use the Tabs panel to define tab settings in the table. Tab settings affect the paragraph in which the insertion point is placed.

To change tab settings, select the columns or cells you want to affect, choose Type > Tabs to display the Tabs panel, and then adjust tab settings.

Change the alignment of text within a table cell

Rotate text in a cell

Change cell inset spacing

You can set the cell inset spacing for both text (containing text) and graphic (containing graphics) cells.

Text cells

In many cases, increasing the cell inset spacing will increase the row height. If the row height is set at a fixed value, make sure that you leave enough room for the inset values, to avoid causing overset text.

Graphic cells

Merge and split cells

You can merge (combine) or split (divide) cells in a table.

Merge cells

You can combine two or more cells in the same row or column into a single cell. For example, you can merge the cells in the top row of the table to create a single cell to be used for the table title.

Unmerge cells

Split cells

You can split cells horizontally or vertically, which is especially useful when creating form tables. You can select multiple cells and split them vertically or horizontally.

Work with overset cells

In most cases, a table cell will expand vertically to accommodate new text and graphics being added. However, if you set a fixed row height and add text or graphics that are too large for the cell, a small red dot appears in the lower-right corner of the cell, indicating that the cell is overset.

You cannot flow overset text into another cell. Instead, edit or resize the contents, or expand the cell or the text frame in which the table appears.

In the case of inline graphics or text with fixed leading, it is possible for the cell contents to extend beyond cell edges. You can select the Clip Contents To Cell option, so that any text or inline graphics that otherwise extend beyond any cell edge are clipped to the cell boundary. However, when inline graphics are overset to extend beyond cell bottom edges (Horizontal), this does not apply.

Display the contents of an overset cell

Clip an image in a cell

If an image is too large for a cell, it extends beyond the cell borders. You can clip the parts of the image that extend beyond the cell borders.