Everything I know about... Inserting Tables on SCN Content

Table are a great way to organize and share your content, especially complex nuggets of information that relate to each other. They can also be used to create columns in your text in order to reduce the length of your content while keeping them tidy in appearance.

Did I mention that they can also add some color to your pages?

Here are some useful tips on getting the most out of tables on the New SCN.

Adding a Table

Inserting a new table is pretty straightforward. Just keep in mind that it's easier to present longer tables than wide ones so consider that when choosing an orientation for your content (horizontal Vs vertical).

1. Click Insert Table on the advanced toolbar
   
2. Drag your mouse to set the table size
   

Inserting/Deleting/Copying Rows and Columns

1. Select a cell from the column or row you want to act on
2. Click the cogto open the context menu
   • The cogs appear on the left of the row and top of the column
3. Select add, delete or duplicate from the menu
   
4. You can also add 1+ rows at the end of the table by clicking Go
   

Apply Formatting to a Single Cell, Column or Row

There are a range of formatting options that you can apply to a single cell, row or column. The first step is to select the range of cells you want to apply the formatting.

1. Click the cell or a cell in the row or column you want to format
2. Click the context menu that appears
   
   
   
3. Select cell, row or column
   
4. A three-part menu will appear
   • Style: Specify where the headers should be, border width/color, table width, alignment with surrounding text
   • Header: Set header background color, cell padding, alignments, font color/family/size
   • Cell: Set background color for all cells (non-headers), padding, alignments, font color/family/size

Applying Formatting to the Entire Table

There are a range of formatting options that you can apply to a table.

1. Click any cell in the table
2. Click the context menu that appears
   
   
   
3. Select table
4. A three-part menu will appear
   • Style: Specify where the headers should be, border width/color, table width, alignment with surrounding text
   • Header: Set header background color, cell padding, alignments, font color/family/size
   • Cell: Set background color for all cells (non-headers), padding, alignments, font color/family/size

Merging Cells

1. Click the cell in the top left of the range of cells you want to merge
2. Click the context menu that appears
   
3. Select Merge (fourth icon from left)
4. Specify how many columns to the right to merge
5. Specify how many rows down to merge
6. Click outside of the menu to apply merger

Deleting a Table

1. Click any in the table
2. Click the context menu that appears
3. Select Delete (last icon on right)

The table is deleted immediately without asking for confirmation! Try CTRL+Z to restore table in case of accident.

Using Tables to Create Text Columns

You can use tables to split your text into columns or segregate ideas side-by-side instead of listing them one after the other (e.g. 2x2 grid).  This maximizes the use of the width of the page while stopping it from getting too long. All that's is involved is removing the header, and making the borders invisible and equally spaces.

For example:

Here's how:

1. Insert a table
2. Delete the Header
   • Select a cell in the header
   • Click the cog on the left side of the header row and select Delete Row
3. Set the column widths
   • Select a cell in the first column
   • Click open the context menu and select column
   • Under Style > Size & Position, select the percentage
     • e.g. chose 50% if two column layout, 33% for three columns (ok, 33%+33%+34%), etc.
4. Get rid of the cell and table borders
   • Click any cell in the table
   • Click open the context menu and select table
     • On Style sub-menu, set border width to 0
     • On Cell sub-menu, under text, select the vertical and horizontal alignment (usually 'left' & 'top')
5. Enter text in columns

Headers in Tables (To Create a Table of Contents)

Header are supported in tables. Having formatted headers allows you to automatically generate a table of contents, just like at the top of this page.

For example, you can choose a vertical style header and format all headers as a header. Then you can create a table of contents based on those headers.