How To Use the New Tables Feature In Freeform

Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. Let's take a look at the new Tables function in Freeform. 

So if you've updated to macOS version 26.2 you should now have Freeform version 4.2 This introduces an interesting new feature, Tables. 

On the Mac version of Freeform you get a button here at the top for Tables and you can click it to add a Table. If you're using iPad OS or iOS then you don't see this button there but you can use the attached button and one of the options there is to add a table. Now it starts you off with a 2 X 2 table but you can expand it by either using the Plus Button on the right side of the bottom. So I can go to a 3 x 2 or a 3 x 3 like that. Let me zoom out so you can see all of it. Or you can click the Table button at the bottom with a table selected and you can change the rows or columns using the arrows there or by entering a number. So I can go to 4 x 4 like that and now I've got sixteen cells in the table. 

Now one of the things you can do with these cells is you can type text into them. So if you click on the Table 1, like that, it selects the Table. The second time selects the cell and a third time will put the text cursor there in the cell and then you can type something. Then it is just like regular text just like any text box. You can select some or all the text and make it Bold or Italic or change its color if you wish. You can increase the font size. All the standard stuff for text. Then you can click and select another cell and type something else in there. Notice I really didn't have to click to get the text cursor in there. If I just started typing it put the text in there. 

Now in addition to being able to Center the text using this control here, you can also center it vertically using this control next to it. So you can have text that always stays right in the middle even when you add more lines. You can also, when you select a cell, use a button to the left of the text formatting button to change the background color of the cell. So instead of white I can have it be some other color or use the Color Picker there and the Color Wheel or anything I want to set a background color for this cell. I can also go to Light or No Fill to have it be transparent. In fact if you just select the Table by clicking once not in any specific cell I can click here on this button and set the Table Fill so all of the cells to a color, like that, or No Fill to make the entire thing transparent. 

While we're in here you can set the Borders. You can have no border at all, borders around every cell, just around the edges, everywhere but the edges, just the rows, just the columns. So you can decide how you want that to look and also change the thickness of the line there. You can make it a dashed or dotted line. You can also change the color, choose any color you want for the grid lines there, like that. In addition you can also use the Text Button there and start changing something about the text for all of the cells. So, I can make it all the same size. Make it larger or smaller or I can change them all to be centered or all to be vertically centered as well. I can manipulate the height of the rows and the widths of the columns by grabbing the dots here that surround it. So I can grab the center dot on the right here and it make the entire thing shrink. Likewise I can grab the dot here at the bottom to make the height shrink or the dot at the bottom right. I can also grab any lines. So I can grab this line here in the middle and make the second column a little narrower there or I can make, say, the first row taller or shorter if I like as well. You can also grab multiple cells and change them. So I could click to grab this cell and I'm going to Shift Click to grab this whole range. I grabbed this whole row here so now I can change, say, the background color for the first row like that. 

Now the other thing you can do with the cells is you can put images, shapes, and other objects in them. So I'm going to click on the Attach Button here at the top and select to choose a photo. I'm going to choose a photo here and it will add it to my board. So now it's a separate element. But if I drag it over a cell and wait right there you can see how the cell highlights and I can drop this onto a cell. Now, this is attached to it, or you can think of it as it belongs to that cell. So, I'll move the entire table around, I'll select a table and it can be a little difficult to attempt to drag a table without accidentally dragging, say, one of the grid lines or something like that. So you have this handle here at the top left that you know can always grab the table and you can see how the image moves with the table. It is actually moving with this cell. If I were to change the width of the second column you can see how the image there stays with this cell. It's anchored with the top left anchored to that spot. So if I were to change the width of the cell itself it stays there. 

Now you may have noticed that sometimes the height and width of the cells change as I move things around. There's a setting for that.  If you go to, Select a Table, go to the overall table properties here. There's Auto Grow Cells. Turn that Off. Now this will not make the cells change size at all which I think is a little bit better way to work with tables. They are a little more stable this way. So in addition to anchoring images inside of cells you can anchor other things like say this shape here. You can anchor multiple things. So I can do, say, the Star here. So now these are both anchored inside the cell. 

Now the neat thing is how Copy & Paste works. If you select a cell, like this one, you would expect if I do Command C to Copy and then go to another cell and Command V to Paste that of course the text copies and pastes. But anything that is anchored in the cell will do so as well. So I can select this cell here that has the image anchored into it, go to this cell and Paste and it will do it. I can also select this cell over here. There are two objects anchored in there. I can Paste and it will do that as well. So you can do some interesting things with that. For instance you can create a table like that and now I can get a shape, like the dot circle, and put it in here like what. Then maybe another circle and let's select it and change its color to something else, and put that in here. Now I can Copy & Paste the contents of one cell and select and copy and paste the contents of another cell and there can be multiple objects or images in here if I want. 

There's also some auto size features. So for instance if I were to select this cell here notice I have this button at the top. I can click it and now it selects the entire column. I then have options. I can add a column before or after the column, delete the column, or resize it which will resize it to fit the contents. It works really well for text but not quite as good for things like images and shapes. So if I select this cell here. Click here for the entire column, then say resize column. It did kind of get it but maybe should have gotten rid of this space and some of this space here. Here's another example of how to use this. You may remember that this board from previous tutorials that I did. You can see how it's a grid but we didn't have tables when I made this. So I made another version of the same thing but instead I placed each one of these into its own cell. So the neat thing is that I can select a table and move it around together without having to group things. I can also change the width like that and the height like this. I automatically get these lines between it to frame each one. So maybe I can make these lines a little thicker and maybe a specific color or just black there, like that. Now if I wanted to move these around I can say select this cell, Command X for cut, go over to here, Command V for Paste. I can kind of move these around to rearrange them pretty easily. 

Here's another example I've used in the past. Just creating a grid of images to use, kind of, as a slide show. But you can do the same thing with a table very easily now. Adding it. Making it the right number of columns and rows. Then I can import in images to here or actually Cut and then select a cell here and Paste pretty quickly here to convert this into something that is going to use the grid. So now I've got them nicely laid out here in a grid. I'll resize the grid like this.

Here's some more tips. You can, in addition to copying a single cell and pasting it, you can select multiple cells, like this range of two cells here. I can do Command C to Copy and then if I select two cells here, I can Paste and it pastes both of them in. If you want to change the width and height of your table but you don't want it to stretch beyond these current proportions you can Hold the Shift Key down and that will allow you to do it. But a you could also, with it selected, under Arrange select Constrain Proportions and now just regular dragging will mean  it is locked to a width and height ratio. 

If you don't like the rounded corners here, but you can change that with any element in Freeform. For instance the edge here has rounded corners. But I can go to Format and turn off rounded corners. I can do the same thing for a table. I can turn off round corners and now they are squared off. Another option you might want to explore if creating single cell Tables. So if I were to take this table her and convert it to a 1 x 1 and then just use it as basically a backdrop for other elements, like I'll take an image here and lock it in here. Maybe I'll create a shape as well and lock that in here, well now it is kind of like I grouped these two objects together and given them a background and perhaps a border. I can move just that one cell table around and have these elements. But I don't have to dig down to it to actually select individual items inside it. 

Now I want to mention that Tables in Freeform are entirely different than tables in Numbers, Pages, and Keynote. For one thing there are not spreadsheets in any way at all. You can put text and even a number in them if you want but this is just text. There is no formula function now. You can't add two things together or use math functions or anything like that. If you just want to have a board that you can put tables on and do calculations and images and shapes and all of that you already have that app, it's Numbers. Numbers does that very well. Freeform Tables really should be called something else because they are not related to tables in those other apps. So Tables in Freeform is very new. It is hard to say how people will use it. It certainly is useful in putting elements in a grid kind of layout but it probably has other uses as well. Play around and experiment and see what you can use it for. Thanks for watching.