OOo Off the Wall: Tabling the Notion, Part 1

In modern writing, tables are used to present long lists of highly structured information. Modern readers want information quickly, especially if they are reading technical or business information and even more so if they are reading on-line. Information arranged in a table can be absorbed in a glance.

Sometimes, bulleted lists are used instead of tables to present information quickly. However, if you have more than about five items, a table generally is more appropriate. A long bullet list encourages people to skip ahead and pay less attention to what's being presented. By contrast, because a long table is more structured, it is less demanding.

The beta version of OpenOffice.org 2.0 (OOo) brings some much-needed enhancements to the way that its Writer program handles tables. Adding, designing and manipulating tables is handled in much the same way, however, as it was in earlier versions.

In this column, we look at these basic tasks of adding, designing and manipulating tables. In upcoming columns, we'll look at how charts and calculations can be generated with Writer tables.

Of all the features in Writer and in OOo in general, few have been tweaked as much as tables. First of all, table options have been moved from the Insert menu to a first-level menu of their own. This change not only makes Writer resemble MS Word more closely, which eases the transition for users, it also makes tools more accessible that previously were available only from the tool bar or right-click menu.

Other changes are not as obvious but are even more welcome. Unlike previous versions, OOo 2.0 allows users to create nested tables, or tables within tables. This change is especially useful in HTML documents, although some designers insist that style sheets and not invisible tables should be used to build complex structures.

Equally as important, rows now can break over pages and columns. This change removes the effective limit of a page for the length of any table. It also avoids the problem of large expanses of blank space when a row contains a lot of information.

A final but less obvious change is number recognition and alignment is turned off by default. This change removes one of the torments new users experience when working with tables and Writer. Before, even users with knowledge of other word processors often were tormented by the numbers they entered fleeing to the lower-right corner, the place they would be in a spreadsheet. This old default was enough of a surprise to scare at least two users that I know of from using OOo, so its removal seems long overdue.

If you plan to use tables often, your first stop should be Tools -> Options -> OpenOffice.org Writer -> Tables. From this window, you can set the default behavior for tables in Writer. Most people safely can ignore the Keyboard handling section, which sets the size of cells when they are moved or added. However, you may want to pay attention to other parts of the window, even though the defaults settings are reasonable for most needs.

Figure 1. Setting the right default table options for your work preferences can make you more productive--and less frustrated.

For instance, in the Default section, you can set whether a header row is repeated on each page of a table, whether cells can split over a page and whether cells have any borders. Similarly, in the Number recognition section, you can set whether numbers automatically are recognized and aligned to the right, as they would be in a spreadsheet.

Probably the most important section, though, is the Behavior of Rows/Column section. This section determines how the addition or removal of rows or columns affects the table as a whole. The default Variable, in which the addition or removal of rows or columns changes the table size, probably is the easiest for beginners to keep in mind. Still, some users may choose Fixed, which determines the table size by the column sizes or Fixed Proportional, which determines column size by dividing the total width or height available by the number of columns or rows.

When you finish making your settings, select the OK button to continue. The new settings do not affect existing tables, only tables added after the changes were made. The settings also are in effect for any new documents.