PAGES - I seriously need help with tables before I have a breakdown

[Maddiebean]

So here's the problem:

I have made a table, typed in info, then decided to delete a column. Apparently this has caused the formatting to go haywire. I now have a row with 5 lines of text at the top and about 20 blank lines underneath which I CANNOT get rid of.
I've tried the basic solution of putting the cursor in the cell and pressing delete - doesn't work.
I've tried highlighting the row by clicking on the left side (which then surrounds the cell with a blue line) - according to pages help I should then have a little = sign in the bottom left corner to allow me to resize the row. There is NO such thing!

So what now?

Also, on a side note, sometime when I touch a cell I can then move it's entire contents on block up to another cell. Sometimes I can't. Any ideas what the trick is to this?

I've got a tonne of work to do that needs tables and am going crazy wasting time trying to sort this out. PLEASE can anyone help?

Thanks

(Gibbering) Maddie

 

[Richard Brown]

Hi Maddiebean,


Welcome to the forum. I'm sorry to hear about your problem with tables in Pages.

I've tried to replicate What I understand you are trying to do. I've had no trouble deleting rows or columns in a table. Here are screenshots of what I did. Please note that to delete a column or a row You need to use the out side border to call up the submenu to outline of what you wish to delete.
















HTH

Incidentally I first created a table with the data in Numbers. then I copied the table into pages. That approach may help your productivity output.

Please let us know how you get on

BTW, to maximise your enjoyment of the forums, please read the forum rules.

Please read all our forum rules here

Also there is a great iPad Forum App guide which can be accessed from a sticky post on each and every sub forum.

Regards

Richard Brown
A member of the iPF moderators' team.

Sent from my iPad using iPF

 

[Maddiebean]

HA! Thanks Richard. I also have no problem deleting rows or columns. What I can do is get of all the blank space at the bottom of a row (underneath the text I have entered). Can I add screen prints or is that only a moderator thing?
My tables are for lesson planning (teacher) so text based rather than number.

Maddie

 

[Maddiebean]

Ah ha! Saw I could do this. So this is an example of how my table looks, how do I get rid of the empty space at the bottom?

 

[Richard Brown]

You've got the screenshot trick OK.

I'm afraid I don't have a complete answer about how to remove the white space beneath text in a row.

I have tried a couple of ways round the problem. If you double tap the cell you should be able to edit its contents. All I can think of is going to the bottom of the cell and deleting all the empty paragraph returns.

I have also copied contents of the cell into numbers and edited the contents in numbers. before copying the results back into pages. It's a little bit clumsy.

BTW. You can use cells in numbers as text areas, rather than numerical ones.

If none of this works I'm afraid you'll have to copy the text from the duff table and then paste it into a new table. I don't like the way Pages doesn't readily provide whitespace for inserting text outside of the table. IMHO that's a shortcoming and I'm always trying to find workarounds.

Once again my apologies for not being able to provide a complete answer. However, I hope this helps in some way.

Regards

Richard

Sent from my iPad using iPF

 

[Maddiebean]

Thanks Richard. I don't have numbers. I have tried the deleting paragraph returns but there don't seem to be any in there - that's what is so annoying! I don't know where the blasted space has come from.

I think I will have to do as you suggested and just paste into a new table. All very irritating and time consuming, especially when you have to keep opening and closing documents.

Thanks for the help though, I appreciate the effort even though pages defies a solution!

Maddie

 

[Richard Brown]

Hi Maddie,


It's me again. I'm going through a new learning curve with Pages

If you highlight a row in which a cell has unused white space, the sub menus had an option to Realign or similar. Tap that option to sort the problem.

Typically I used the feature and cannot fi d it again!

Back to Numbers. It's worth a look. It has a multiple tagged worksheet feature. Very handy

Sent from my iPad using iPF

 

[dougrogers]

Select the row you want to format by tapping on the side. Tap on the paint brush icon (really. A paint brush?) to select the formatting options under the appropriate tab.

 

[dougrogers]

Another thing you might try is to get the = control back on the screen/page. It seems, from the screenshot to be off in limbo space. Tap the little button in the top left to select the whole table. Can you drag the table to reposition it?.... Nope. I just tried here on a smaller one. You can't position it higher, off the top of the page..... Hmmmm...

 

[dougrogers]

I can however, make a table the length of a page, and drag it down the page so it splits across the first and second page. I suspect that this is somehow what has happened here. Can you tap the top left control on the table and drag the table down the page?

 

[Richard Brown]

Got it! Resizing a row, so that the contents fit is done with the "fit" command which appears on the floating menu when required. See screenshots..









I'm guessing you've checked "Pages" help pages accessed via the top right spanner icon. Some of the techniques, such as dragging a row to amend its depth, or to move the row, don't work for me.

Sent from my iPad using iPF

 

[twerppoet]

. . .Some of the techniques, such as dragging a row to amend its depth, or to move the row, don't work for me.

Sent from my iPad using iPF

Usually when I have trouble resizing by dragging the drag handle on a row or column it is because it is too small. Pinching to zoom in usually helps. Also, if you have merged cells in a row or column it will interfere with your ability to resize.


Hmm, for some reason I'm not seeing the drag handle in your screen shots.

 

[twerppoet]

Ah, I see.

The drag handles and ability to reposition rows goes away when the table spans more than one page.

Lesson, don't try to use tables larger than a page.

If the table would fit on a page but spans it for some reason, you can drag the entire table using the dot at a the top left. It appears when you have any portion of the table selected. It's also what you tap when you want menu items that apply to the entire table. You may have to change the table's Wrap mode using the Arrange tab under the paintbrush icon.

 

[Richard Brown]

Thanks for checking this out, TP. The problem has been solved.

I was getting frustrated with the loss of adjustment facilities for the rows.

I have just tried adding in loads of columns. The table cannot span across several pages so the columns narrow to accommodate the paper dimension.
This is where numbers is better than pages when working with large tables. An advantage of numbers that you can work with multiple tabs / work sheets in a single file. So you could setup a master sheet for something like a timetable for a week and then copy that master across different tabs couple weeks 123 etc.
Of course in numbers selves can be formatted for numbers or dates or text.

It is possible to copy the contents of a numbers table into a pages table. However be careful about the problems of large tables spanning over into more than one-page.

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[twerppoet]

Thanks for checking this out, TP.

I was getting frustrated with the loss of adjustment facilities for the rows.

Sent from my iPad using iPF

No problem, though really, I was just satisfying my own curiosity. It sounded so bizarre I just had to try and figure out what was going on.