Chapter 8

There are multiple ways to access the various table options discussed in this chapter, so I will focus on the methods, menus, and panels that I use most frequently. One of the many benefits of creating tables in InDesign is that you can style your content in so many different ways. Who would have thought you’d ever be making tables that look so flash after using a program like Excel for so long? Yep, I just said Excel when referring to nice-looking tables. Joking aside, InDesign works amazingly with tables, and it allows you to import data from both Excel and Apple’s Numbers app. Basically, any table data you need in an InDesign document can be imported and styled. In this chapter, we’ll go through some basic and important tips to help you create the best table data possible. Trust me, there are people out there who are impressed by this! Tables and InDesign are important in the real world when it comes to informative design. Just go into a fast food restaurant, eat in, and grab a tray. More often than not, the tray has a sheet of paper with a fun-looking graphic advertising the latest toy or in-store offer. If I had designed that I would be proud of my work. Now flip that sheet over and check out the back. Any good restaurant will have a massive table of food data, ingredients, calorie data, etc., for every item they sell. This is where InDesign and tables come together: the front might be the sales pitch, but that chart on the back is an important element that has to be available. And you still get paid for that kind of work! Tips included in this chapter range from something as simple as how to build your first table to how to place Excel files; add graphics to cells; create header rows; rotate text; merge cells; use fills, strokes, and shading; and quickly add more rows and columns. It’s the more technical side of creating in InDesign, but don’t underestimate what you can achieve with some basic principles.

InDesign Fun Fact #9

InDesign was the first MAC OSX–native desktop-publishing software.