Working With Tables

TypeMetal makes creating and editing HTML tables a breeze!

Inserting a Table

You can create a <table> the same way you’d insert any other HTML element.

For example: Press Control+/ and type the first few characters of “table”. You should see <table> at the top of your completion list. Press the Return key or the spacebar to go ahead and create the table.

(Note: A table can only contain table rows and cells, and can’t be wrapped around existing content. You must therefore have an insertion point in order to create a table.)

TypeMetal starts you out with an empty table, that has a caption, a header row, two data rows, and two columns. From there you can insert and delete rows and columns to get to the table grid you want.

Navigating a Table

• Pressing the Tab key moves you from one table cell to the next, wrapping to the next row of cells when you get to the right edge. When you leave the last cell, Tab moves you to the table’s caption (if it has one). From a table’s caption, Tab moves you to the table’s first cell.
• Pressing Shift+Tab moves you through the table’s cells and caption in reverse.
• Pressing the arrow keys moves you from one cell to any adjacent cell.
• Pressing the Return key moves you to the first cell in the next row. If there is no next row, it inserts a new row, and moves you to the row’s first cell.

Editing Cell Contents

When a table cell is selected (highlighted with a blue box), you can simply begin typing to enter content into the table cell. As a special case of the usual editing rules, typing with a cell element selected doesn’t attempt to delete the cell; it only replaces the cell’s content.

Inserting and Deleting Rows and Columns

You can insert and delete table rows and columns using the menu commands in any of the following places:

• the Structure → Edit Table menu
• the content area’s context menu
• a <tr>, <td>, or <th> path bar segment’s context menu

It’s also perfectly fine to select table row elements (<tr>) and remove them by invoking Cut (Command+X) or Delete (Delete key).

Adding a Table Caption, Header, and Footer

The same menus listed above also provide for adding a caption (<caption> element), header (<thead>), or footer (<tfoot>) to tables that don’t yet have these parts.

As with table rows (<tr>), <caption>, <thead>, and <tfoot> elements can be deleted using the usual selection mechanisms and the Cut (Command+X) or Delete (Delete key) commands.