Adobe InDesign Beginner (2023): Tables and Interactive Forms

Name: Adobe InDesign Beginner (2023): Tables and Interactive Forms
Author: Mike Collins

Learn how to create or import tables in InDesign and how to add and edit text, graphics, and interactive features like buttons and hyperlinks

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Course: On-Demand

Hello, my name is Mike Collins. In this lesson, you'll learn about how to create a table in Adobe InDesign. An Adobe InDesign table is usually made up of columns and rows of different cells with some type of text or image data. And the application allows you to put one together in a variety of ways. You can start from scratch to make your own unique table or import existing text or images to put one together. You can even import one table into another. Let's open the Adobe application and create a new document that's eight and a half by 11 inches in landscape orientation. We'll zoom out so we can see the table a little better. You can create your table within an existing text frame or let Adobe InDesign create a text frame for your table. Now let's take a look at a few different ways we can create a table. From the menu bar at the top of your screen, let's select table and create table. With this method, Adobe InDesign will create a text frame when you draw the table in your document. Now we can choose the dimensions of the table and decide how many rows and columns we'd like our table to have. You can also choose if you want your table to have header or footer rows and how many of each. A header or footer is used to show repeat information at the top or bottom of each divided part of your table. Let's go ahead and make our table with four rows and five columns. We'll also create one header row and no footer rows. If you look down at the bottom of the box, you'll see a menu item called table style. This shows you different ways to format your table. You can select no table style, a basic table style option, or you can create your own custom option. For our table, let's just use no table style and create our table from scratch. Now if you notice, the cursor will have a small table icon to the right and below of it. We'll place our table where we like within the document layout. Click on the mouse and now we have our table. As you can see, we have five columns and what appears to be five rows, even though the top row is actually the header row we'd selected earlier. And the header is where we'll enter information about what each of these columns means. Now the table here fits nicely into our document layout. If your table was too small, and we'll use the size of this, then the extra cells will appear as overset text. Now that's indicated by the small red box and with a plus sign in it on the lower right of the table. Now you can scale or resize it until everything fits into the table. And now the overset text image has disappeared and everything fits within each of the table cells into the document layout page. You can modify your table like any other frame in Adobe InDesign. But remember that the table itself does not interact with the frame if you move and drag it. Like a graphic in a frame, even though they're grouped together, they are still independent and don't always change at the same time. If you want to increase the width or decrease the width of the column on the right, we can increase the frame size by dragging it to the right or left and double clicking on the last column. Notice now our cursor becomes a double arrow and you can drag this column to be any size you like in the document. Okay, so now we have one very narrow column on the right. Now to make each column equally sized, there's a couple of options. We can select on the table, move our cursor to the top corner until it turns into a black vertical arrow at the top or a black horizontal arrow on the left -hand side or a diagonal arrow. And if we click, all the cells will now be selected and they'll fill with black. We can now right click and choose how I want our cells to look. And in this case, if we want to make them even again, we can distribute rows or columns evenly. Let's go ahead and choose the distribute columns evenly option. And you can see now that all the columns are the same size. If you want your header row to be shorter, you can do the same. We can choose and drag down to create any size we like on the left, right or bottom. We can also drag and resize any or all of the rows by selecting on any one of them and moving them left, right, vertical or diagonal. If you want to add more rows to your table, you can move your cursor into the table and double click. Go to the top menu and select table, insert row or column. And now we can select if we want our new row to be added above or below the current row and how many we'd like to add. Another useful tool in InDesign is we can click inside of the table, place our cursor on the last row, press option or control and drag down to create as many rows as we like. You can also create another row in your table by placing your cursor in the last cell and selecting tab. Now, if we choose several cells, we can click on them, drag our cursor to the right and choose however many cells we like. Now, we can merge these cells in several ways. We can right click and go to the merge cell option and now they become one large cell or we can go to the top and merge or unmerge our cells by selecting whatever menu item we choose. And now we've got individual cells again. You can also make a table from existing text or imported text as well as import a table from another application such as Microsoft Word and Excel. And we'll discuss these options in more detail in another lesson. Now you've learned how to create a basic table with rows, columns, headers and footers in Adobe InDesign. Stay tuned for the next lesson where I will show you how to add and modify text with tables in Adobe InDesign. Thanks for watching.

Beginner Provider : Mike Collins 5 Lessons · 30m in English

Course Description

Learning how to easily and effectively organize information including text and graphics is an essential element in communication. These lessons will teach you how to create tables to display both written and visual data in a way that will connect with your audience and allow them to process information easily and effectively. Managing the flow of information with the tools you learn in InDesign can help you or your organization meet its communication goals.

In this course on Adobe InDesign, you will learn how to create a custom table. We will explore how to edit and modify tables, how to add text and graphics in cells, and how to make interactive features. By the end of this course, you will also be able to add hyperlinks and create and edit custom clickable interactive buttons and forms with object states capable of performing a variety of functions.

What You'll Learn

Create custom tables to organize and display text and visual data
Add, merge, unmerge, or delete cells when editing and modifying tables
Add text and graphics inside table cells
Build interactive forms, hyperlinks, and clickable buttons
Create and edit custom interactive buttons with object states for an EPUB format

Key Takeaways

Organizing information, including text and graphics, is an essential element in effective communication.
Tables let you display written and visual data so audiences can process information easily.
Managing the flow of information with InDesign tools can help meet communication goals.
The course covers creating, editing, and modifying tables, including adding text and graphics in cells.
By the end, learners can add hyperlinks and create clickable interactive buttons and forms with object states for an EPUB format.

Frequently Asked Questions

What will I learn in this Adobe InDesign course?

You will learn how to create a custom table, edit and modify tables, add text and graphics in cells, add hyperlinks, and create and edit custom clickable interactive buttons and forms with object states.

What topics or lessons does this course cover?

The course includes lessons on Creating Tables, Adding and Modifying Text with Tables, Editing Tables, Working with Cells in Tables, and Interactive Forms and Hyperlinks.

What skills are associated with this course?

The course relates to Adobe Illustrator, Adobe InDesign, and Adobe InDesign Certification.

What interactive features can I create after taking this course?

By the end of the course you will be able to add hyperlinks and create and edit custom clickable interactive buttons and forms with object states capable of performing a variety of functions for an EPUB format.

Is this course suitable for beginners?

Yes, it is an Adobe InDesign Beginner (2023) course covering tables and interactive forms.