About this lesson
Understand how to use tables which are a “grid layout” for columns of text, like room locations or employee contact information.
Quick reference
Creative Ideas - Tables
The TABLES tool is a grid (or table) to help you organize text into a structured format.
When to use
Tables are a good option, especially if you need to organize information into a quick reference format.
Instructions
Follow along with the video to practice working with Tables and the Table Tools Ribbon. 
- Open a Blank Publisher file.
- Click Insert, Table, and choose the size of the table (4 x 6)
- Enter some header titles:
- Observe the Table Tools Ribbon and practice using the various tools available on both the Design and Layout ribbons.
- 00:04 It's important that you know how to apply a table and use a table in Publisher.
- 00:10 So I've got a blank document or a blank Publication.
- 00:13 Click on the insert ribbon, and right here we have an option that says Table.
- 00:17 Now, I can float my mouse in here.
- 00:18 I'm not even clicking and dragging, I'm just floating my mouse in here.
- 00:21 And you can see what's happening on the screen as I just move the mouse along.
- 00:25 So basically, it's setting up a grid.
- 00:28 It's sort of an Excel feature, but we're applying it into a publication.
- 00:33 And it is automatically centering itself, so I'll go ahead and activate that.
- 00:38 And now, let me just zoom in so we can see this a little better on our Screen.
- 00:42 Notice it has an outside border and
- 00:44 even a green tool that I could tip it sideways if I want.
- 00:47 That's the fun part of it, is you can do all kinds of things with this afterwards.
- 00:51 So I'm gonna go ahead and grab the edge of it and
- 00:54 actually move it higher on the screen.
- 00:57 You're not seeing anything here because nothing is typed in yet.
- 01:00 And keep in mind, all the little background grids you see,
- 01:03 these are non-printable unless I tell it to print these as borders.
- 01:07 Now I'm clicked inside the first cell, and take a look at what's going on up on top.
- 01:11 I have a brand new Table Tools ribbon, I have a Design ribbon, and a Layout ribbon.
- 01:17 On the Design ribbon right over here, if I hit the drop down arrow, look at this.
- 01:20 I don't even have to think of ways to design it,
- 01:23 it's already thought of them for me.
- 01:25 So it depends on what kind of color you like, or
- 01:28 just your base level colors are fine as well.
- 01:31 So you can decide everything here it's all up to you I'm just gonna go with this nice
- 01:35 little blue background right up here.
- 01:38 All right so now I can go ahead and type let's see First Name
- 01:42 maybe this is an employee Let's an employee list and
- 01:47 I've got to make sure okay I've got everyone's phone number so I contact them.
- 01:54 And what shift do they work, you now just your base level information.
- 01:57 And we'll keep a couple of other spares there.
- 02:00 So now you can just enter in Enter information.
- 02:03 I'm just hitting Tab between these.
- 02:05 It doesn't matter that I'm just typing junk in here.
- 02:07 It doesn't matter.
- 02:08 The important thing is you can see what's happening over on the left hand side.
- 02:12 Now after this is filled in, you can make all kinds of changes.
- 02:16 I can change the weight of the lines, the line color itself.
- 02:19 I can add borders in here.
- 02:21 So if I put All Borders on here, it just put borders around that particular one.
- 02:26 If I had all of the cells selected, so I click and drag all the cells and
- 02:30 then choose all borders.
- 02:32 Now it's going to outline every single one of them, and
- 02:35 now these borders will absolutely print.
- 02:37 Now remember, out here on the left-hand side on my page navigation,
- 02:41 that is the example of how it's going to print.
- 02:43 All right.
- 02:45 Maybe I want to change font format, so I can highlight these and
- 02:49 I can change the format of everything that's up there on that top line.
- 02:53 I wouldn't get too fancy with this stuff, but just so
- 02:56 you know you have Of the option.
- 02:57 I also have some fun, I don't know if I like that in particular but
- 03:03 you have all kinds of things you can do.
- 03:06 If you don't like something you've changed just control Z to undo it.
- 03:10 So basically this is your base format for a table and
- 03:13 it's just a way to put a grid of information within a publication.
- 03:18 I do have the lay out here in the background if you want to delete
- 03:23 any columns or rows.
- 03:25 I can delete a column, delete a row, delete an entire table.
- 03:28 I can insert new columns.
- 03:30 So maybe I want, let's see, right here I'll go ahead.
- 03:34 Click and drag that entire one and choose Insert Above.
- 03:37 It will push a brand new row right above it.
- 03:39 So don't be afraid to use these tools.
- 03:42 You can center everything, change text direction, change the cell margins if
- 03:46 it's word wrapping in there the way you don't like, you can change it.
- 03:50 You can actually arrange this, bring it forward or backward and
- 03:54 change the size to a specific size, maybe 2 by 6 is what you wanted to be and
- 03:59 it will slightly shift itself.
- 04:01 So, feel free to use that in your publications, to organize a lot of data.
- 04:06 Sometimes paragraph format is not the best format.
- 04:10 Sometimes a nice grid format shifts hours work to volunteer hours I don't know.
- 04:17 There's hundreds of ideas I could give you, but just so
- 04:20 you know that you have the option to use that.
- 04:23 Again, it's all on the insert ribbon and table.
- 04:26 Thank you.
Lesson notes are only available for subscribers.