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Unmerging Table Cells
By Cari Jansen | May 3, 2009
There are number of applications out there that enhance InDesign’s Table Style feature. Be it by adding features to InDesign’s Table Style panel, such as the Typefi Designer plug-ins do that are part of Typefi Publish client-software used to build InDesign templates for automated page-composition, or by adding separate functionality such as Woodwing Smart Styles.
When building so called prototype or “base” tables that form the source for formatting tables in InDesign using these tools, there is generally a rule that states that the prototype table may not contain merged cells. This is to do with the fact that no information regarding cell formatting of the ‘merged cell’ is recorded as part of the prototype and can result in new tables once formatted with these styles displaying unexpected results, if they are build with merged cells.
To build our table designs however, we generally do work with merged cells, for instance for header rows, so we can visualise end-results better.
A quick way to unmerge ALL cells in a table, regardless where they appear, is to select the entire table and then choose Table > Unmerge Cells command.
Doing this before defining your prototype, will also display any formatting issues that might require cleaning up, prior to defining the styles.
Topics: adobe, indesign | No Comments »