The Basics Of Formating And Styling Table Cells

Table Cells - Add Background Colour And Font Colour

In the previous section I showed you how to draw and erase cell lines (border lines) and how to merge table cells. In this section I will continue by showing you how to add colour to the invoice template which also ties in with the Borders And Shading window from the previous section.

In this first example I will show you how to add background colour for all the invoice headings, which are made up of one row of cells, using the Borders And Shading window.

Begin by highlighting the row of cells with the headings on them (Work Carried Out, etc) and then right click over any one of the highlighted cells to bring up the Options menu. From there, click on the BORDERS AND SHADING menu-item to bring up the Borders And Shading window (Fig 1.1).

Fig 1.0  Right click over a highlighted row of cells and then select the BORDERS AND SHADING menu-item




Fig 1.1  The Borders And Shading window

With the Borders And Shading window now open, the first thing you might want to do is make the border lines around the highlighted cells thicker so that the headings stand out from the information cells below them. If so, click on the third drop-down menu, called WIDTH, and select your desired border (cell line) thickness. In this example (above) I am making the border lines 2¼ thick. Changes to the border (cell) line thickness will be previewed in the diagram area of the window, as shown below.

If you then want to change the colour of the border lines you can click on the second drop-down menu, called COLOUR, and select a colour. This colour change will then be previewed in the diagram area (Fig 1.3 below).

Fig 1.2  Select a colour for the border (cell) lines, if need be.




Fig 1.3  Changes made to the border (cell) lines will be previewed in the diagram area of the window

At this point you would only be changing things for the currently highlighted cells. If you wanted to make these changes applicable to the whole table (all the cell lines) you would need to click on the APPLY TO drop-down menu, in the bottom-right corner, and then select the TABLE menu-item. At the moment any changes you make are only applied to the currently highlighted cells. For this example though just leave this setting on CELL.

If you now click on the OK button any changes you have made to the border lines will be applied. However, if click on the CANCEL button those changes will not be applied.

Fig 1.4  The border lines of the currently highlighted cells have been made thicker and burgandy

You can do one action at a time such as change the border thickness and then click on the OK button, perhaps because you want to view the real changes as opposed to a preview, but this can be a time waster. Most of the time you will find it easier to just make all the changes in one go and then click on the OK button. So with this said, assuming you did not click on the OK button yet, continue by clicking on the SHADING Tab (window) of the Borders And Shading window.

Fig 1.5  Click on the FILL drop-down menu and select a background (fill) colour for the highlighted cells

The shading window has options on it that allow you to change the background of the highlighted cells. This means you can apply a colour or a shading to the background. Shading such as a pattern or picture. In this example (above) I am keeping things simple by using a colour only, which is done by clicking on the FILL drop-down menu and then selecting a colour.

Once a colour has been selected it will be previewed in the diagram area of the window. To apply all of the above changes simply click on the OK button.

Fig 1.6  Click on the OK button to apply all of the settings you have changed

With the colour of the background and border lines now changed, for the highlighted cells, I will now make the wording (headings) inside the highlighted cells bold (thicker) by clicking on the BOLD font style button.

Fig 1.7  Click on the BOLD button to make the highlighted words thicker

I will also make the wording (headings) inside the highlighted cells larger by clicking on the FONT SIZE drop-down menu and selecting a larger font size (number). As you hover over the font sizes (numbers) the headings will grow, but as a preview only. Meaning, if you move the mouse pointer away from the FONT SIZE drop-down menu the headings will retain their original font size of 11. FONT SIZE was explained in the Change Font Text Styles section.

Fig 1.8  Click on the FONT SIZE drop-down menu and select a different font size, if need be.

In this example I am going to make the font size permanently 14 by clicking on the number 14. Doing so then forces the Work Carried Out text (heading) to go over two lines of text simply because there is no longer enough space for it to fit on one line of text. This is something you need to be aware of and ideally take care of before resizing cells and so on. In other words, do your font sizes first and then the resizing of cells. Hence why I have purposely shown you this example.

To rectify this problem you can either reword the heading to Work Done for example or resize its cell by dragging its cell line rightwards.

Fig 1.9  The change in font size has forced the Work Carried Out text (heading) onto two lines

With the invoice template almost finished, the last things to do are insert a Business Address into the top-right cell and a Logo (or invoice wording) in the top-left cell. In the example below, to keep things simple, I have just typed a business address into the top-right cell and then right aligned its text by clicking on the ALIGN TEXT RIGHT button. From there I just typed the word INVOICE into the top-left cell whereby an invoice number could be inserted later.

Fig 1.10  The final look of the invoice template

The idea througout these tables and cells sections wasn't to show you a fully blown invoice template but to show you how tables and cells work in general. Meaning, I have shown you the foundations so that you know how to build things. For example. When you know how to create tables, draw table lines, merge cells and so on, just like you have been taught over the last three sections, you should begin to realise that a table of cells is just another way of saying Squares or Boxes grouped together.

Take this next example of business cards, with the knowledge of tables and cells you now have; You should be able to know what I did to create these homemade business cards.

Fig 1.11  These homemade business cards were made in microsoft word using tables/cells

If you look closely they are just table of cells separated by hidden cell lines. The top and bottom of each table has a yellow background (fill) cell with the middle cell white. I have centered the text with the ALIGN TEXT CENTER button and made certain wordings thicker with the BOLD button. Business Cards that are simple to make once you know about tables and cells.

In the final section of these table lessons I will show you how to move tables around, amongst other things.