44Rows and columns
A table for a board, not a spreadsheet. Type into the grid, or paste a block straight from Excel or Google Sheets and it fills in one go.
Find itInsert → Table…. Sweep across the little grid to say how many rows and columns you want, then drag out on the board where it should go and how big — the table appears there, at that size, open and ready to type into. A quick tap instead of a drag gives it a standard size. Fastest of all: copy a block of cells in Excel, Sheets or Numbers and paste onto the board — the table is made for you, with those cells already in it.
Type in itThe table is edited where it lives, not in a dialog over the board, so you can always see it against the rest of your work. Click a cell and type. Tab moves across, Enter moves down, and either one at the end adds a row rather than stopping. Esc finishes, and so does clicking anywhere else on the board.
Paste into itCopy a range from a spreadsheet and paste into any cell: the block fills from that cell outwards, and the table grows to fit if what you pasted is bigger than it is. Tabs and newlines are exactly what every spreadsheet puts on the clipboard, so there is nothing to import and no format to choose. More → Copy as text sends it back the other way, for pasting into a spreadsheet or another table.
Shape it by handEverything about the structure is on the table itself. A bar of column handles sits along the top and a bar of row handles down the left: tap one to select that column or row and get insert, move, clear and delete for it. Between every two columns — and before the first and after the last — there is a dot that inserts one there, with a line showing exactly where it will land; the same down the side for rows. Between columns there is also a grip you drag to set that column’s width, and only its neighbour gives up the room, so one edge does not shuffle the whole table. A + past the right edge adds a column, one below adds a row, the corner sizes the whole table, and the grip at the top left slides it around the board without leaving the editor.
Dress itThe toolbar floats just above the table. Style offers eight ready-made looks — including a Chalk one with no fills at all, so a chalkboard shows through — plus the header row, a bold first column, banded rows or columns and rounded corners. Font and the size stepper, the three alignment buttons, Colours and Borders are each one tap away. Colours asks what to colour first — text, cell fill, header text, header fill, the background behind the table, or the lines — and then shows the swatches for that one, with a full picker for any colour at all. Choosing the target first is what keeps the panel small enough to stay on screen.
What you change is what you selectedThe button on the left of the toolbar says what the next change will land on, and that follows your selection. With the whole table selected, the size and colour are the table’s own. Tap a column handle and the alignment is that column’s. Tap or drag across cells and the size, text colour, fill and alignment are those cells’ — so one total row can be shaded, one answer can be red, and a heading can be centred over numbers that sit right. Setting the whole table again hands the individual cells back, so nothing is left fighting.
Merge cellsDrag across the cells you want to join, then press Merge on the table’s toolbar. Merge all makes the whole block one cell — a title over the top of the table, say. Merge across joins each row of the block separately, and Merge down joins each column separately — a subject name down the side of several rows. Unmerge splits any merged cell you have selected back into its cells. The words in the cells are kept, joined into the merged cell, and the merged cell takes the look of its top-left cell. A column or row handle offers Merge the column or Merge the row in one tap. Selecting part of a merged cell takes in the whole of it, inserting a row or column inside a merged cell makes it bigger, and pasting over one splits it first so nothing you pasted is hidden. You can also ask Genie: “merge the header row”, “merge column 1” or “unmerge the table”.
Write on itOnce you finish, the table is an ordinary mark on the board: replay it, cover it with a region, print it, export it, and a live class sees it like anything else. Write straight over the top, or More → Turn into text on the board to break it into text objects you can edit and rub out one at a time.
TipColumns size themselves to their contents, so a Yes/No column stays narrow next to a column of sentences — until you drag one, and then your width is the one that is kept. More → Measure the columns again hands that decision back. A paste that changes the shape of the table measures them afresh, because a width chosen for four columns means nothing once there are eight.
Part of the Slate guide — or read the whole guide on one page.