8. Tables Like You’ve Never Seen Before
In This Chapter
- Different Ways to Insert a Table
- Copying and Pasting Excel Tables
- Animating Table Cells
- Adding Style to Tables
- Applying Effects
- Advanced Table Facts
Another feature that has been completely revamped for the 2007 Office release is PowerPoint tables. Although the new tables differ quite a bit from the previous versions, you should find the new behavior to your liking. You might not know that tables in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint are all different. This chapter familiarizes you with the PowerPoint flavor.
Different Ways to Insert a Table
As with most objects, head to the Insert tab on the ribbon to find the Table button.
The Grid
From the Table button, a drop-down reveals a grid of 10 columns and 8 rows of boxes. At the bottom of the drop-down, you see the Insert Table, Draw Table, and Excel Spreadsheet options (see Figure 8.1).
Figure 8.1 The drop-down revealed from clicking Insert Table.
This top part of the drop-down containing the set of boxes is pretty cool. You can choose the size of both the rows and columns by clicking and dragging with the mouse, rather than having to input exact rows and columns. It gives you a visual representation of the table rather than forcing you to calculate the size of your table in your head, visualizing how many rows and columns, and then entering that information. In addition, a preview of the table is shown as it would be inserted in your slide. Simply drag to select the desired size of the table and click to insert it (see Figure 8.2).
Figure 8.2 Insert a table by choosing its size via the mouse and a set of boxes.
Insert Table Dialog
However, if you want a table larger than the maximum 10x8 cell table that is allowed from the Table button drop-down, click the Insert Table option, as seen in Figure 8.1. This brings up the Insert Table dialog (see Figure 8.3).
Figure 8.3 The Insert Table dialog enables you to customize the size of your table grid.
This will look familiar if you have ever inserted a table in previous versions of PowerPoint. Enter a number for the rows and columns or use the up and down arrows to increment and decrement.
Note
A subtle yet important difference here between PowerPoint 2007 and PowerPoint 2003 is that the maximum number of rows and columns has increased from 25x25 to 75x75 in PowerPoint 2007.
Draw Table
The Draw Table option is interesting in that it lets you click and drag to select a region that will become a table. The main advantage is that it lets you set the overall height and width of your table, which is useful if you know ahead of time what space you want the table to occupy.
But because it doesn’t know how many rows or columns you want, the default is 1 and 1, so you end up with one cell in your table (see Figure 8.4). After this is done you can increase the number of rows and columns to create the rest of your table.
Figure 8.4 Use Draw Table to manually indicate an area that you would like to use for a table.
Note
A neat feature available now is the ability to specify a table’s height and width on the ribbon. With a table or table cell selected, click on the Layout tab under Table Tools; then find the Table Size group and modify the Height and Width.
Excel Spreadsheet
The Excel Spreadsheet option is not as intuitive as you might think. Remember from Chapter 6, “Rediscover Charts,” how inserting a chart would launch Excel and put the applications side by side? When Excel Spreadsheet is selected from the Table button, rather than launching the Excel application, an OLE object containing an Excel Spreadsheet is inserted (see Figure 8.5).
Figure 8.5 Excel Spreadsheet adds an Excel Spreadsheet OLE object into your presentation.
This lets you use the full power of Excel, including all the Excel ribbon tabs, all from inside PowerPoint. To return to PowerPoint when you’re done, just click outside the Excel spreadsheet or press Esc on your keyboard.
Copying and Pasting Excel Tables
Another easy way to create a table is to enter your data in Microsoft Excel and then copy and paste it into PowerPoint, as shown in Figure 8.6.
Figure 8.6 Pasting Excel data as a native PowerPoint table.
The column and row borders even get copied correctly into PowerPoint, just as they appeared in Excel. These become regular PowerPoint tables, which can be themed and edited in full fidelity inside PowerPoint.
If you feel more comfortable in Excel, you can instead paste the Excel data as Excel OLE data (see Figure 8.7). Although the tables look fairly similar, when you double-click the OLE version spreadsheet, you have access to the same Ribbon tabs that are in the Excel user interface, just as you saw in Figure 8.5. To paste as Excel OLE, go to the Home tab, click the arrow under Paste in the Clipboard group, choose Paste Special, and select Microsoft Office Excel Worksheet Object in the resulting dialog. The downside is OLE objects are a little clunky. Your formatting choices are more limited from within PowerPoint; you cannot format cells individually, for instance.
Figure 8.7 Pasting as a Microsoft Office Excel Worksheet Object results in an Excel OLE object.
All this can also be applied to copying and pasting Word tables. Again, by default, a Word table is converted and pasted as a native PowerPoint table. You can use Paste Special to add it as a Word OLE object.
Animating Table Cells
Because the PowerPoint 2007 table is a single object rather than a group of individual shapes as in previous versions, you will not find the Ungroup command as an option to use on the table. This might sound devastating if you want to separate it into individual cells for something like animating each one independently.
Fortunately, there’s a common workaround that works just as well with a little extra effort. To convert a table into a group of individual shapes, do one of the following:
1. Select a PowerPoint table.
2. Copy the table.
3. Choose Paste Special. You can find this option on the Home tab, in the Clipboard group. (Click the arrow on the Paste button.)
4. Select Picture (Enhanced Metafile). You might have to scroll down in the dialog.
5. Click OK.
6. Now that you have converted the table to a metafile, you can right-click on it and choose Ungroup. You are prompted to make sure that you know what you’re doing. Confirm the operation.
7. Now that you have a single group, you can right-click on it and choose Ungroup again.
Alternatively, you can use Save As Picture to achieve the same result:
1. Select the PowerPoint table.
2. Right-click and select Save As Picture.
3. Choose a folder where you want to save the picture and select Enhanced Windows Metafile (.EMF). You might have to scroll down in the dialog to see the option.
4. Click OK.
5. Now that you have saved the table as an enhanced metafile, click Insert Picture and choose the file you saved.
6. Right-click the table object and choose Ungroup.
7. Right-click the table object again and choose Ungroup again to get individual shapes for cells.
Both methods work equally well: The main difference is that the Paste Special method requires you to save the table as a file and then insert it into your presentation.
Now that you have individual shapes for each cell, use the Animations tab to animate them the way you want (see Figure 8.8).
Figure 8.8 After you ungroup your metafile twice, you have a shape for each cell, which allows you to add individual-cell animations.
A great thing to do here is select a row of table cells, add a custom animation, and then select all the text for that row and add a custom animation that starts after the cell animation ends. This will create a great-looking effect in which the table cells animate first, followed by the table cell text. Read more about PowerPoint animation in Chapter 15, “Going Beyond Slide-by-Slide.”
Adding Style to Tables
Because tables are the latest addition to improved graphics in PowerPoint 2007, they inherit the ability to be styled. Like most PowerPoint objects, the easiest way to style a table is to select from a gallery of canned choices—this time from the Table Tools Design tab and then choosing from the choices in Table Styles. As you will read in Chapter 11, “Dissecting Themes,” these are derived from the presentation’s theme.
PowerPoint also makes it easy to apply these common customizations to a table:
- Header row
- Total row
- First column
- Last column
- Banded rows
- Banded columns
These pieces of the table inherit special styling from the current table style when a style is applied to the table. Notice that the Table Style Options group of the Table Tools Design tab has each of these options with a check box next to each (see Figure 8.9). When checked, each option changes the look of one or more columns or rows. Figure 8.10 shows which part of the table changes for each of these effects. Of course, these can be combined so that you get a table with a Total Row and Banded Columns, for instance.
Figure 8.9 The Table Tools Design tab lets you choose which table style options to apply to the currently selected table.
Figure 8.10 Checking each Table Style option applies one of the visual changes shown here. For example, Total Row creates a line right above the last row in the column.
Note
Depending on the current table style, checking these boxes might not appear to have any effect. For example, if the current table style is a plain table, checking Total Row won’t appear to do anything. If you later change Table Styles to something that makes Total Row formatting visible, formatting for Total Row will appear. Essentially, you’re requesting that PowerPoint add a Total Row, but the author of the theme is the final arbiter of whether your table will look good with that change.
To apply a style, do the following:
1. Select a table.
2. Click on the Table Tools Design tab.
3. Under the Table Styles group, select a Best Match for this Document style that is shown by default, or open the gallery and choose a style that you like (see Figure 8.11). Best Match isn’t a specifically labeled style; it is the group of styles that is listed first because it best fits the current theme.
Figure 8.11 The Table Styles gallery.
If you select the entire table and apply formatting, such as a fill, any changes you make are applied to each cell rather than to the table as a whole. For example, if you apply a picture fill, each cell in the table will contain that picture.
Tip
The advice here applies only to native PowerPoint tables. For Excel OLE tables, the entire table is treated as one object, and you can apply very limited formatting to the entire OLE object, such as a border around it or a picture or texture fill.
Applying Effects
New effects in PowerPoint 2007 can also be applied to tables, although they are applied to the entire table for the most part, not individual cells. For example, Shadows and Reflections take effect on the entire table, but Cell Bevels apply on a per-cell basis.
To apply effects, do the following:
1. Select a table.
2. Click on the Design tab. Under the Table Styles group, find the Effects button to the right of the Styles gallery: It is at the bottom of the three buttons on the right.
3. Click the Effects button to open its drop-down list and apply Cell Bevel, Shadow, or Reflection.
To learn more about applying effects in PowerPoint, see Chapter 12, “Formatting Shapes, Text, and More.”
Advanced Table Facts
Now we have the basic functions of tables covered, but there are still a few unrelated quirks about how tables work.
Resize
Resizing a table is similar to resizing other objects in PowerPoint. When the table is selected, you see selection handles appear around the table (see Figure 8.12). Use your mouse to grab the middle of any of the four sides and drag your mouse to resize.
Figure 8.12 Drag the middle of the selection handles around the table to resize a table.
Notice that when you resize a table, the size of your text does not change with it, which might cause your table to have a lot of extra whitespace that you do not necessarily want. If you want your text to resize proportionally with your table, simply hold down the Shift key while you resize and the text font size will change when you resize the table (see Figure 8.13).
Figure 8.13 Proportional resize versus regular resize.
You can also modify the table height and width in the Table Size group on the Table Tools Layout tab.
Insert Rows and Columns
Insert a row by clicking the Table Tools Layout tab and then going to the Rows & Columns group. Here, you find commands such as Insert Above, Insert Below, Insert Left, and Insert Row.
When you insert a row, the table itself gets larger and the row is placed either above or below the cell currently selected. However, if you contrast this with what happens when you insert a column, the behavior is different. With a new column, the table width remains the same, but a new column is added, making the existing columns smaller (see Figure 8.14).
Figure 8.14 Inserting a row adds a new row and makes the table itself bigger in total area. Inserting a column does not increase the size of the table itself, but rather resizes all the existing columns, making them smaller to accommodate the new column.
Cell Sizes
The Cell Size group under the Table Tools Layout tab lets you specify an exact height and width for the current cell. A button to the right of each text box lets you distribute the heights evenly across the selected rows so that all your cells have the same height, or you can distribute widths across the selected columns so that all your cells have the same width.
Cell Margins
The Cell Margins drop-down under Table Tools Layout, Alignment lets you choose between four common margin choices: Normal, None, Narrow, or Wide. If that doesn’t accommodate your needs, choose Custom Margins at the bottom, and you can set specific Left, Right, Top, and Bottom margin values.
Splitting and Merging Cells
To split one table cell into two table cells, simply select that cell, go to Table Tools Layout, Merge, and choose Split Cells.
To merge multiple cells into one, select multiple cells, and then click Merge Cells, also on the Merge group.
Draw Table
The Draw Table option inserts row and column dividers when it is applied to an existing table. This is useful when you don’t want to go through the trouble of using the Ribbon to split a cell (see Figure 8.15).
Figure 8.15 Draw Table lets you split rows and columns by drawing a line between existing cells. In the left table, we’re using the Draw Table pencil to draw a vertical line down the right column. The table on the right shows how this created an additional column of table cells.
You can find Draw Table on the Draw Borders group under Table Tools Design tab . After choosing Draw Table, your cursor turns into a pencil. Use the pencil with your mouse to draw internal borders inside an existing table.
You can also draw diagonally, but it will not create a new cell. Drawing diagonally creates a new table if you start at the corner of the existing table or just selects the content if you start anywhere else.
Make sure that your cursor is inside an existing cell on the table you want to split cells on. Otherwise, Draw Table will create a new table in your presentation.