Unit 7. Setting up Tables (III)

Adding and clearing rows and columns

There are many ways of adding and clearing the rows and columns of a table.

The first thing to do is to place the mouse in a cell or to select several of them, and to unfold the tables' contextual menu by right clicking, or you can also open the Modify menu. In both cases you will see the Table option.

Depending on the selected cells, some of the Table options will be able to be used and others won't.

To insert a row or a column, just clic on Insert row or Insert column option. The row is inserted over each cell or the set of selected cells, and the column is inserted to its left as well.

We can also count with a full option, the Insert rows or columns option. When you select this option you will see a new window where you can define whether you are going to insert rows or columns, their number, and their position.

To delete a row or a column, just place the mouse in the row or column you want to delete, and select Delete row or Delete column from table menu.

You can also select the row or the column you want to delete and press the DEL key.

To practice you can perform the Step by step exercise to Add and Eliminate rows.

Combining and Dividing cells

It is possible to insert tables into other tables. This is called Nest tables.

Next you have an example of nest. As you can see, in the first table cell, another table has been inserted.

To nest, you just have to place the mouse in the cell where you want to insert the new table, and insert it the way we have just seen.

Combine cells consists of converting 2 or more cells into just one. This will clear the separating border between the cells and they will become one. This can be useful, for example using the first row to write the table's title. In this case you would have to combine all the cells of the first row into just one.

Dividing cells consists of a split.

One of the ways of dividing and combining cells, is through the properties inspector.

If many cells are chosen they can be combined by clicking on the button of the properties inspector (found at the bottom left of the properties panel, or by selecting the Merge cells option in the Table option. As you have seen, you can get there via the contextual menu of the table and via the Modify menu.

You should remember that it is only possible to combine continuous cells, a combination which would lead another cell, i.e the result is a square. For example, in the next table cells 1 and 4 cannot be combined, neither cells 1, 2 and 3, because those combinations do not lead to a cell.

To split a cell you have to click on the button of the properties inspector, or on the Split cell option of Table submenu.

In both cases, you will see a window like this, in which you need to specify whether the cell is going to be divided by rows or by columns, and the number of these.

To practice you can perform the Step by step Exercise on Combining rows.

Table modes

At the time of working with tables, Dreamweaver offers us many different view modes. We have worked all along in the theme with the standar mode, and we will continue working this way, but you can go to different modes through View menu, and then the Table mode option. Inside this option we can select between the Standard mode, Expanded Tables mode, or Layout mode.

Layout mode is used to draw pages with a defined design based in tables. Using this view, the tables don't have to be obligatorily inserted into text lines as we have been doing up to this moment. They can be inserted into any part of the page, and Dreamweaver will fill the blank space to make it possible for the table to be shown in that position.

Expanded Tables mode adds temporary filling and cell space to a table, and increases the tables borders to make the edition easier. This mode can be used to select tables elements or have the insertion point in the required way, but in this mode we don't see how the page will be shown.

We will limit this course to just the standard mode.

  Unit 7 exercise.

  Theme 7 Evaluation test.

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