10 Creative Uses For Tables In Pages

Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. Let me show you some creative uses for Tables in Pages documents. 

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Now when you think of using Tables in a Pages word processing document you probably think of tabular data. That's probably what most people use them for. But you can actually get really creative with Tables. For instance, you can just use them as a simple way to layout items on a page. I'll go and click on the Table button in the top toolbar here and create the most ordinary table, like that. Then I'm going to go and Format, Table and turn off Alternating Row Color there. So all the squares look the same. Then I'm going to click on the number of columns adjustment there and I'm going to click on the number of rows adjustment there and set it to 2 by 2. Now as long as I see these little squares I can actually drag and adjust the size of the whole table. If you're inside of a cell you can't see those so click outside, click the table just once and you get to see those squares. Then you can adjust this, like that, and create these little areas and you can just add things into them. 

So I can just type four things here. Maybe this could be a whole paragraph of text and use of the entire table again. Go to Format and then Table. If I use the row and column size here I can set precise measurements. So let's say I want it to be 2 by 2 for every cell. So they are perfectly square. Then I'll go to Text here and I cannot only center the text horizontal, I can center it vertically as well, like that. So now you get a layout like that. Which is definitely a lot harder to create with Shapes & Textboxes. Also if you select the entire table and you go to Cell you can change the border. So I'm going to select All Borders here and then change the Style of All Borders to No Border. So now you can see what it looks like. It's just four words perfectly arranged like this. Now I can grab the entire table and adjust it and set this up as I like. But of course I'm doing a 2 by 2 grid here but it can be any size you want. It just makes it really easy to layout information in a grid without having to mess with textboxes and guides and all of that. 

Next, let's say you've got a list of data. Here are some names. You want to alphabetize them. There's no good way to do that in Pages except if it is in a Table. So you can select all of this. I'm going to go to Edit, Cut to put it in the Clipboard and also to get rid of it. I'm going to create a simple Table here.Then I'm going to select the first cell, like this, and then do Command V to Paste. You can see it pastes all the names there. I don't need all these other rows so I'll get rid of them like that. Once it is in a Table I can click right here at the top of the first column and I can Sort. So I can sort all these names like that. So now I get a sorted list. I can go back into here, change this tab Non-alternating rows. I can go into Cell and I can get rid of all the borders and if I don't want to see the borders, like that. I can just have a table of data here. 

You can also use this to randomize things. If you want these to be in a random order, I'm going to add another column here and in this column I'm going to put a simple formula. I typed the equals key, like that, and I'm going to type RAND, like that. That's the only part of the formula. That puts a random number between 0 and 1. I'm going to Copy that, double click on B here and then Paste. It pastes the random formula in all these. So it's just a random number there. Now if I click here in row B and I Sort here , it sorts by these random numbers thus randomizing the first column. I can now click here again and Delete this column and now I've got the names in a random order. 

Here's something that is tabular data but it's not necessarily what you would think of when doing a Table. It's a Glossary. So I've just got the first column with a term and the second column with the definition. You can adjust the column widths like that. So I need less space here for the term than for the definition. I can make the entire thing very narrow if I want. As long as you have Format, Arrange and object placement set to Move with Text so it is actually inserted in the body text of a Word Processing Document then the Table will flow from one page to the next. So you can have this at the end of a document and cover many pages in one table. Note if you do change to Stay on Page and use that as the layout, then it's only on one page. So you can see here how it ends at the end of this page. You can customize this if you don't like how it looks like a table. Go into Table here. I'll get rid of Alternating Row Color. I'll select Cell and I'll get rid of all of the Borders, like before. I'm going to select Column A here and I'm going to have, under Text, have it right justified so it is like that. I'm even going to select row 1 here and then under Cell I'm going to change the Fill to No Fill. Now it looks a little more just like it is regular text except instead of going to all the trouble of having to lay this out or use Tabs of something like that. 

Now here's another use that is tabular data but is a little different than just creating your own table. Did you know that if you Copy and Paste tables from the web it will appear as a table in Pages and then you can edit it. So here I've got some tabular data, just population numbers. Let's go and grab the first ten rows here and I'm going to Command C to Copy. Note that what I really want is the name of the State plus the census population in the second numerical column here. The 2020 numbers. So now when I Paste it's going to paste it as a table. I can go in here and I can select this column and then I'm going to Command Click to select these others right here and I'm going to Delete these selected columns like that. I can continue to customize this. 

Note another way to do it is to create a table first, like this. So I'll create this one here. Then I'm going to select the 2nd cell in the first column. Then if I Paste here it is going to paste the data starting right there. But it looks more or less the same. Instead of doing that I'm actually going to use Edit and then Paste & Match Style. Now when I do that you could see it doesn't try to include the graphics or to change the font to match the font on the page. 

Now here's an example of a Table that can be used to perform a calculation. Say you're talking about physics here and you're talking about this formula and you want to demonstrate how you take the initial velocity, acceleration of time and find the final position of an object. So these are just numbers that can be filled in and then you've got your calculation right here. The calculation looks like this. It's A2 times C2 and then you add half of the acceleration times the time squared to the power of 2 here. So you've got your calculation there. The great thing is while you're creating your document if you decide that you want to change something, you want to change the acceleration, you can change it here and then when you click away you can see how it updates this. This is also useful if you want to copy and then paste this later on, like that, you could have this one have different values and you can see it adjust there. You don't have to do the calculation yourself.

Or it could be a simple set of numbers that you want to add up.  So I've just created a simple table here with some names and then some numbers here. So let's go ahead and add another row at the bottom and under Format, Table I'm going to change this to a Footer Row, so I have one Footer Row here. Then I'm just going to use a simple formula that's SUM and then click on the Header here so it just selects the whole range, close the parentheses, and I get a total. I can select the entire column here, go to Format, Cell and change it to currency. No decimals. Add a thousand separator. So you get a simple little table here. This is very useful if, say, you're creating a document you need this in it, but maybe you don't have the final numbers right now. You can just put these placeholder numbers in and then adjust what you want later on, like that. 

Another thing you can use a table for is to create a calendar. So let's just insert a simple table right here. I'm going to extend this to be a few more rows. I'm going to make sure they are 7 columns here. The top you can put the days of the week. Starting here you can put 1 and then you do a formula to take this one plus one like that, copy this formula and paste it throughout here and then here you do the last one in that row plus one like that. Copy and paste these and then you can see how it just easily creates this nice flow here, like that. Then all you need to do is just get rid of the numbers here, like that, to have it match the month that you want. Then get rid of the excess numbers like these. Now you've got a little calendar. If you extend this notice how the numbers stay at the top to the right but I could select all of these. Then I go to Text and have it be, say, left justified. Then have it align to the top. Then you could change the styling and all of that. You can use little textboxes. Set those to Arrange, Stay on Page and don't wrap anything. Then you can place these in here as bits of text to add to a certain day or just add some graphics to this. I actually have this video from several years ago that goes into more detail about how to create a calendar using a Table in Pages. You can get really creative with it. 

But here's something relatively simple. Let's say you just want to create some graph paper. Maybe this is a worksheet that you're creating for students and you just want to have a bit of graph paper in the middle of a page. Or maybe you want to start with some graph paper and then draw on top of it. So let's create a table here. I'll use the simplest kind. But then I'm going to go to Format, Table and turn Off Alternating Row Color. I'm going to then create the number of columns and rows that I want. Let's do a 10 by 10. Then under Format Table I look at Row & Column size. I can set these to something specific. So let's say I want ½ inch for each, like that. You can see it looks like a grid right now. If I select it I can go to Format, Cell. Select All of the Borders there and change the Style. Let's go and make this like 1 point like that. Now I've just got this simple piece of graph paper. This could just be part of the document. But you could also add Shapes over it, like a curve for instance. Set the Format, Arrange Style to No Wrap and now I can position it as I want and add textboxes and circles and other elements that I want on top of this grid. 

You could also use Grid like this to represent game boards. So let's go and set this to an 8 by 8, like that. I'll go back into Table here and make sure I set the height and width to something that makes sense, like that. I can just put characters in here. Like, for instance, I can make this into a chessboard. Once I've got all of those I'll select all of these here. Let's go to text and center both horizontally and vertically, like that. I can change the Font size, Font Type, and all of that and create this game board. I can even draw arrows on top of that. If you want you can even go in and add real chess pieces. So I'm going to use Control Command Space or you could use fn and then E to go to the Emoji Special Character Viewer. Depending upon what you have selected or your character sets you can find chess pieces like this. You could add them in there. 

You could also go ahead and add a simple table like this. Let's make it 3 by 3. Then I'm going to make it roughly square like that. Go to Format, Table. Get rid of the alternating rows there. Go to Format, Cell and then let's get rid of all the border styles, so No Border here. Then I'm going to choose the three middle ones and choose the left side set that to one pixel. The right side set that to one pixel. Choose these three. Set the top side to one pixel and then the bottom to one pixel as well. I've got a simple tic-tac-toe board. I can resize it very easily here. I can leave it blank or I can add characters in there and then again go to Format, then Text, Center and Center, like that, and have some fun with it. 

I have this video here that shows you how to make Bingo Cards in Numbers but the same technique can be used on a Table in Pages as well. 

Here's one more example. You can use Tables to create timelines very quickly. So I'm going to create a simple table here and I've got some basic data I'll paste in. We don't need these two columns here. We certainly don't want it to be Alternating Row Color like that. So let's adjust the table with, what I can do here is I can grab the line between the rows here and adjust the size. So between 1972 and 1977, five years. Let's make that point 5 inches. 77 to 89 is twelve years. So let's make that 1.2 inches. Then 89 to 97 we will do .8 and then 97 to 2006 we will make that approximately .9 like that. Now I'm going to select all of these. I'm going to go to Format, Cell and I'm going to set all borders. Set Border Styles to No Border. Then I'm going to select just one of these columns here, this one, and I'll make the left border of that, let's say 3 points. So now you've got something that looks like that and it kind of looks like a timeline but I made it pretty quickly and easily. You can even get creative with that and also create timelines that are horizontal instead of vertical.

So these ideas are just a start. I hope they inspire you to think of even more things that you can do with Tables in Pages. Thanks for watching.