Inserting a “Table”

An object “Placeholder box” allows us to choose between different objects that can be added to the “Placeholder box”.

The first of these is the “Insert Table” option.
Click on this icon when you want to insert a table.
This opens a dialogue window in which you can specify the number of columns, and the number of rows.
Click the OK button in this dialog window, when you have them entered.
This inserts a table in the “Placeholder box”.

A second way to add a table is by selecting the “Insert” tab in the “Ribbon” and clicking the “Insert Table” option.

This option allows us to enter the number of columns and rows where we can select a maximum of 10 columns and 8 rows up from a drop-down menu.
When we move the mouse pointer, we see a live preview shown in the presentation.
Click the mouse when you’ve selected the preferred settings.

This will automatically select the newly inserted table in the presentation.
You will notice at the top of the “Ribbon”, that the tab having tools for the layout of our table is displayed.
This “Table Tools” tab consist of two additional tabs, which we call contextual tabs.
The first is the “Design” tab, which is selected and, the second one is the “Layout” tab.

This second tab also gives us two other options.
Draw the table manually and insert a table as an “Excel” worksheet.
Both of these seem quite obvious to me .

Selecting cells:

A table in “PowerPoint” is the same as a table in an “Excel” spreadsheet.
This is made up of rows and columns.
The point of intersection of a column and a row is called a cell.

To select an entire row, place the mouse pointer to the left or right edge of the table, and when the mouse pointer changes to a black arrow, click it.
The same rule holds for selecting an entire column, so, move the pointer to the upper or lower edge of the table, and when the mouse pointer changes to a black arrow, click the mouse.

To select adjacent rows or columns, click and drag with the mouse.
The same procedure is followed for selecting a cell, move the mouse pointer over the edge of the cell, and when it changes into an upward pointing arrow, click the mouse.

Another way of selecting, and probably the quickest, is by clicking a cell and dragging on the rest of the cells you want selected.

To select an entire table, place the mouse pointer over the edge of the table, when it changes into a four-headed arrow, click the mouse.
To move a table, place the mouse pointer over the edge of the table, and when it changes into a four- headed arrow, click and drag it to the desired position.

Adding rows and columns:
To add rows or columns, select the column (or row) and click the “Insert Left” or “Insert Right” buttons under the “Format” tab in the “Ribbon”.
For rows, you have the “Insert Below” or “Insert Above” buttons, which are quite obvious.

To add multiple columns or rows, select them, and click on any of the buttons mentioned above.
For example, if you wish to add 3 columns, select three columns in your table and click either of the “Insert Left” or “Insert Right” buttons. This will add three columns to your table.

To add a row at the bottom of your table, you don’t need to do all this.
Just place the cursor in last cell of the table, and press the “Tab” key on your keyboard.

Deleting columns or rows:

To delete columns or rows, we MUST use the “Delete” button under the “Format” tab in the “Ribbon”.
When we use the “Delete” key on our keyboard, only the data from these cells is removed and not the cells themselves.

So place your cursor in a cell, click the “Delete” button in the “Ribbon” and select “Delete Columns”, or “Delete Rows” from the drop-down menu.

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