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, then unfold the table contextual menu by right clicking on it, 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 click on the Insert row or Insert column option. The row is inserted above the cell or the set of selected cells, and columns are inserted to its left.

We can also count with a full advanced 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 the 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 to Nest tables.

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

To nest tables, you just have to place the mouse in the cell where you want to insert the new table, and then 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, to use 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 spliting them.

One of the ways of dividing or 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 or via the Modify menu.

You should remember that it is only possible to combine adjacent cells, or a combination which would lead to another new cell, in the example the result is a square.

In the next table cells 1 and 4 cannot be combined, neither the cells 1, 2 and 3, because those combinations do not lead to a new squared cell.

To split a cell you have to click on the button of the properties inspector, or on the Split cell option of the 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 this unit with the standar mode, and we will continue working this way, but you can go to different modes through the View menu, and then selecting the Table mode option.

Inside this option we can choose the Standard mode, the Expanded Tables mode, or the 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. It also increases the table borders to make its edition easier. This mode can be used to select tables elements or to 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 just to the standard mode.

  Unit 7 exercises.

  Unit 7 Test.

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