How can I create a table with different columns?

[Mateomono]

Hi, I need to create a table where there is one, two, and then four columns. However, I can't seem to create this without affecting the other columns. For example, if I add four columns, all the rows have four columns. Is there a way to achieve this in InDesign?

Thank you!

[Randy Hagan · Accepted solution]

Not exactly.

The default for creating columns is to create a column that goes from the top to the bottom of the table. So yes, if you create a four-column table, every row will have four columns. However, just like in Excel, you can merge cells to create a row with combined cells that have the impression of having less than four columns. So you've got to bake the cake — and create tables with the same number of columnsfrom top to bottom. But when you're spreading the icing and trimming the cake, you can change the number of columns for any individual row to suit your needs.

To use your example above, you would combine all the cells in the first row to create the Table title row, then combine the first and second cells, and combine the third and fourth cells, to build the "eyebrows" to cover the subsequent four rows of your table. Just highlight the cells you want to combine, go to the Table panel, open the flyaway/hamburger menu at the top right of the panel and select Merge Cells. It's that easy.

Hope this helps,

Randy

[Mateomono]

@Randy Hagan Thank you very much! 

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

The one thing you can't do [easily | at all | unless I've missed something] is have the columns be offset to one another, as you can in Word. They have to fit the "grid" of the largest number of columns.

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

@James Gifford—NitroPress

Can you post a screenshot of what you would like to achieve?

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

I'm not trying to achieve anything. But in Word, you can grab any cell and horizontally size it irrespective of the cell borders above and below. You can create a whole "mosaic" table if you like. ID, AFAIK, locks cell width to some underlying grid. Yes, you can work around that, but I rarely see the need to or the need for freeform tables. 🙂

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

I'm not trying to achieve anything. But in Word, you can grab any cell and horizontally size it irrespective of the cell borders above and below. You can create a whole "mosaic" table if you like. ID, AFAIK, locks cell width to some underlying grid. Yes, you can work around that, but I rarely see the need to or the need for freeform tables. 🙂

By @James Gifford—NitroPress

Four clicks and done 🙂

1) select two cells:

2) split vertically:

3) select cells that you want to merge back :

4) done:

or:

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

@James Gifford—NitroPress 

Just in case - for others 😉 - if you press SHIFT - you can resize just this one column:

Or rather both adjacent cells.

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

Technically, when you split a cell, columns are added and the other cells are just being merged automatically. 

Even when you "hang" a cell in Word, it's just making the other cells invisible.

Word:

Saved as HTML and viewed in Dreamweaver (oval around hidden cells selected in DW):

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

Technically, when you split a cell, columns are added and the other cells are just being merged automatically. 

By @Dave Creamer of IDEAS

Yes. It can't work any other way.

Even when you "hang" a cell in Word, it's just making the other cells invisible.

Word:

So it pretty much works the same - InDesign just doesn't hide it?

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

>>So it pretty much works the same - InDesign just doesn't hide it?

Unless I'm missing a technique, I don't think you can take one row/cell and extend it like in Word. In InDesign, one has to add a column, merge the top cell, remove formatting from the other non-merged cells. Word does this all automatically.

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

>>So it pretty much works the same - InDesign just doesn't hide it?

Unless I'm missing a technique, I don't think you can take one row/cell and extend it like in Word. In InDesign, one has to add a column, merge the top cell, remove formatting from the other non-merged cells. Word does this all automatically.

By @Dave Creamer of IDEAS

That was my point 😉 WORD does it automatically. But the internals of the table are the same. 

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

Interesting. I hadn't thought through the technical implementation.

Point entirely being that Word has a whole set of E-Z drag and drop functions that ID — probably rightfully — lacks. We see a lot of posts by newcomers who can't figure out how to format tables using the more rigid methods.

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

Yes--that "feature" is a real PIA! 😜

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

@Mateomono 

You can achieve this through so called MERGING:

https://helpx.adobe.com/indesign/using/formatting-tables.html