Styling Tables
- Jenny Seifert (Unlicensed)
On the CADTH eXtyles style palette, the buttons on the Tab/Fig tab are used as follows.
Table Title: Table number and table title.
Table Accessibility Caption: The alternative caption/title for the table, if present.
Table Head: Table head cells at the top of columns within the Word table.
Table Subhead: Table internal heading (typically spanning multiple columns).
Table Body: Table body cells.
Table Note: Table footnotes.
Table Source: Table source notes or credits
For ease of table styling and to ensure that all paragraphs in the document are properly tagged, Inera recommends that table footnotes be placed after the table (i.e., outside of the table grid), as in the following Simple Table example, although this is not a requirement.
When using the eXtyles palette, eXtyles normally applies the selected style to a whole row of cells at once. To apply the selected style otherwise, use the modifier keys as indicated in the following table while pressing the relevant button on the palette.
Key | Action |
|---|---|
(none) | Applies the specified style to an entire row (from the current cell to the end of the row). |
Shift | Applies the specified style to the remainder of the table (from the current cell to the end of the row). |
Control | Applies the specified style one paragraph within a cell at a time. If there is only one paragraph in a cell, this behavior is the same as Shift + Control. |
Shift + Control | Applies the specified style to one cell at a time. |
The Shift key is particularly useful when styling a table: as soon as you reach the point in the table at which all remaining cells are to be tagged as your table body style, for instance, you can hold down Shift and click on your table body style, and eXtyles will tag the rest of the table automatically!
Please note the following special information about styling tables with the eXtyles palette (as opposed to the regular Word Paragraph Style menu):
When styling tables, empty cells are skipped.
Using the eXtyles cleanup feature to add non-breaking spaces to all empty table cells ensures that all table cells are correctly styled
eXtyles preserves any of the following format information that was previously applied to each cell by an author:
Alignment (left, right, center, justify, decimal)
Indents (first line, left, right)
Tab stops (e.g., decimal alignment)
Shading
All of this information is respected during an eXtyles CALS or XHTML export.
If the entire content of a cell is already in italic, bold, or underline, eXtyles will preserve this markup.
If a paragraph style for a table cell specifies italic, bold, or underline markup, it will be applied to the entire content of the cell.
Because eXtyles will preserve in the XML the table formatting described here, it is important to proof carefully tables in the Word document. For instance, if the author has applied shading to table cells but that shading is not intended to be included in the final product, it will be important to remove the shading from the table in the Word document before XML export.
Likewise, if decimal alignment is required in the final product, it will be important to proof carefully the format of the table in the Word document before export to make sure that decimal alignment has been applied.
Simple Tables
The following simple table shows the correct location of each style:
Table 1. This is a Table Title. It may be located within the table grid or outside of it.
The Table Accessibility Caption, if present, appears following the Table Title.
Table Head | Table Head | Table Head |
|---|---|---|
Table Body* | Table Body | Table Body |
Table Body | Table Body | Table Body |
*Table Footnote text. Any symbol or number can be used (or, no symbol/number).
Complex Tables
Paragraph styles can be used to add specific formatting to table content. Your configuration’s list style can be applied to an individual table cell that contains a list using the Shift + Control shortcut; or to an individual list paragraph within a cell using the Control shortcut.
For tables that contain row headers mid-table, the table spanner head style should be applied, rather than table body (see the following example).
Table 1. This is a Table Title. It may be located within the table grid or outside of it.
The Table Accessibility Caption, if present, appears following the Table Title.
Table Head | Table Head | Table Head |
|---|---|---|
Table Body | Table Body |
|
| ||
Table Subhead | Table Subhead | |
Table Body | Table Body | Table Body |
| ||
| ||
*Table Footnote text. Any symbol or number can be used (or, no symbol/number).