Google Docs – Getting to grips with tables (part 1)

One of the most common things that is added to documents is a table. So, it makes sense that you know how to create the table the way you want it. Here we’ll look at pretty much everything related to tables. It’s a long post so, I’ve divided it into two.

Part 1

• Inserting a table
• Deleting a table
• Adding information to a table
• Inserting rows & columns
• Deleting rows & columns
• Column width & row height
• Distribute rows & columns
• Vertical & horizontal alignment of cells

Part 2

• Cell background colour
• Table borders
• Merging & unmerging rows & columns
• Cell padding

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Inserting a table

1) Click on “Insert” then “Table”.

2) This opens a grid and with it you select how many rows and columns you want.

The biggest table you can make is 20 x 20, although you can add rows and columns to it later if you want.

Note, by default, the table will be the width of the page (margin to margin) and that all the columns are the same width and the rows are the same height.

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Once a table is created, to edit the table all you need to do is, to right-click on the table and this brings up the table menu.

Most of the functions below initially start by going to this “Table” menu. The same menu can be accessed by going to the “Format” then “Table” menu at the top of the screen.

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Deleting a table

To delete an entire table, right-click on the table and select “Delete table”.

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Adding information to a table

To add the information you want to the table, just click on a cell and start typing.

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Inserting rows & columns

To insert a row to a table, right-click on the row where you want to add the row and choose either “Insert row above” or “Insert row below”.

This will automatically match the style of the row either above or below.

Inserting a column is similar, right-click on the column where you want to add the column and choose either “Insert column to the left” or “Insert column to the right”.

Note, Docs will automatically adjust the columns of your table, so it fits the width of the table.

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Deleting rows & columns

To delete a specific row or column, right-click on the row or column you want to delete and select “Delete row” or “Delete column”.

You can also delete multiple rows or columns at the same time. Highlight the rows or columns you want to delete. Note, you don’t need to highlight the whole line just a cell in each row or column. For example, here I’ve only selected the bottom to cells on the left to be able to delete the bottom rows.

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Column width & row height

Above I inserted a column and I want to name it “recommendation”, but the only problem is that the word ‘recommendation’ is a bit too long for the cell. So I need to adjust its size.

There are two ways you can change the column width or row height.

1) Hover over the border line you want to change, the cursor will change to two arrows. Then click and drag it to where you want it.

2) Or you can type in the specific width or height.

a) Right click on the column or row and select “Table properties”.

b) Check either the “Column width” or “Minimum row height box” and type in the size you want (in cm) and press “OK”.

Tip: This can be useful if you want to make a number of columns or rows the exact same size. In this case, highlight the rows or columns you want, then right-click to enter the “Table Properties”.

Note, the row height is called MINIMUM row height. This is because the row height can’t be smaller than your font size. If you try to make it smaller, it will reduce it to the size of the current font in that row.

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Distribute rows and columns

Sometimes you want to change the column widths so that every column is the same width. There’s a quick way to do this. Select the table.

Go to Table and then click “Distribute columns”.

As you can see the columns are now the same width.

We can do the same with the rows, just this time click “Distribute rows”.

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Vertical & horizontal alignment of cells

Horizontal alignment

Using the table above, I want to centre all the columns. To do so, just select all the cells you want to change, then go to the toolbar and click on “centre”. It’s the same way as centring a piece of text.

Vertical alignment

Vertical alignment is useful if you have rows that are quite big and you want to position the text in the cells in a specific position.

Here I have my table and first I want to change the top row alignment, then the rows below.

1) Select the top row.

2) Right-click and enter the Table properties.

3) Under “Cell vertical alignment”, normally by default it will say “Top”, click on this and select “Bottom”, as I want the text in this row to align along the bottom of the row. Press “OK”.

As you can see, it moved the text in top row from the top of the cells to along the bottom.

I also want to change the cells below. So, I select all the cells below the first row.

Go back into Table properties and this time, select “Middle”.

As you can see it’s centred those rows.

To learn more about Google Docs tables and in particular, borders, merging, and padding see the second part of this post here.

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