Insert and format tables

- [Voiceover] In this video, you'll learn to insert and format tables. Specifically, you'll learn to create new tables, import tables from external sources, modify the number of rows and columns, and apply table styles. Tables are important because they display data in a reader-friendly format. Be sure you're familiar with all of the options for inserting tables for the MOS exam. There are several options for creating a table. First, we'll insert a table by specifying a number of rows and columns. Second, we'll copy and paste an existing table from Word or Excel.

And third, we'll insert a linked object from Word of Excel. I've opened 04_02_Hotel and I'm ready to insert tables. The first option we'll look at is specifying the number of rows or columns. A common task might be to insert a new slide after slide 10. I'll go ahead and select slide 10 and create a new slide. In this example, I'm instructed to add a title in content slide. I'll click the new slide down arrow and choose Title and Content.

I'll click in the Title area to add my new title. And a title in this case is Dining Options. Notice the content area below. I can click to add text or I can use the icons to add other types of content. I'll click to insert a table. In this example, I want three columns and five rows. I use the arrows to select that option and I'll click OK. From here I can click at any cell and add my text. The exam instructions tell me what to put in each box of the table.

I'll start with my headings and first heading is location. I've just clicked in the box and I'll type in Location. Pressing Tab to move to the next cell. After entering the first row of text, I press Tab and move to the second row. My table is now complete. I will point out that you could have inserted this table by clicking Insert on the ribbon and then clicking the Table button. This is another option. And in this case, I just highlight the number of rows and columns I want to build the table. This works really great when you have a blank slide.

My second option is to copy and paste an existing table. I'll select slide eight which has already been prepared for my table. I have the prices that are needed for this table in an Excel file. I've opened the file 04_02_Rates.xlsx from my Exercise File. You can see the table that exist here. What I want to do is copy and paste this. I'll go ahead and click and drag to select the table. Click the Copy button. I'll click Home on the ribbon and click the Paste button.

A nice keyboard shortcut is to press Control + V. You can always use that to paste in any Microsoft program. Once the table is on the slide, I'm able to resize it. I'll place my mouse in the lower left hand corner and just drag diagonally. And I'll do the same in the upper right hand corner. This makes the table a little bit larger and easier to see. The third option that I'll display for inserting a table is to insert a link object from Word or Excel. For this I'll start by inserting a blank slide.

I'll click the New Slide down arrow and choose a Blank slide option. Because I'm inserting content, I want to click on the Insert tab from the ribbon. This time I want to insert a link table so I'll use the Object option. From the Insert Object box, I'll click Create from file. I'll browse for the file. And from here, I'll choose that same 04_02_Rates.xlsx file that we used before. I want to click the Link box here. And it does to note at the bottom that the picture will a shortcut to the file so that changes to the file will be reflected in your presentation.

The one thing to keep in mind here is that you always need to maintain that link to the Excel file. You don't want to delete it. You don't want to move it. You don't want to rename it. And if you take this PowerPoint presentation to another computer or send it to somebody, you're always at risk of losing that link. That's why we look at that package from CD option in a previous video. So we'll go ahead and leave the link selected. I'll click OK. And you can see that the table does display. What's unique about this version of the table, again, I can double click and it does bring up the Excel file so I can tell that it is link to that original file.

I'll go ahead and click the x to close this. Our next MOS objective in this section is to modify the number of rows and columns in a table. So for this I'll select slide 12 where we created our own table. Let's say I wanted to add another row here. So it's easy to add a row at the end of the table. You can simply click at the end of that last row and press your Tab key and a new row is created. If I want to insert a row somewhere in the middle, I can click in a particular row. And then notice the ribbon tabs that display for the table up above.

If I click on the Design tab, I get one set of options. And the Layout tab gives me another set of options. Layout is the one that provides the option to insert rows. Notice I get the option to insert above as you can see happens here or if I click Breakfast and Coffee Bar again and Insert Below, I've got that same option. Insert Left and Right is about columns. Let's say I want another column to the left. I can insert left and I get more columns. If I should need to delete any rows or columns, I can just press Delete.

I'll go ahead and delete the columns. Again, since three are selected, it will delete all three or I can click and delete a particular row. So it's good to go ahead and play with these options so that you're familiar with how they work in an exam setting. Just went ahead and cleaned up and deleted the blank rows. Now my table size has changed so I can go ahead and just stretch it wider and you can see everything returns to normal. The other options I'll mention here are merge and split. I'll go ahead and insert another new row just above the Rooftop Smoothie Bar.

And just point out that I do have the three cells which is consistent with the other rows. I can select that entire row and then choose Merge Cells from the ribbon. You can see it turns out into one large row or I can choose Split Cells and choose how many columns I'd like to see. So that's another nice option to play with. I'll go ahead and delete that row just clicking in it and choosing Delete Rows. The last section here is about applying styles. PowerPoint has a variety of styles you can quickly apply to a table.

These options always match the theme of the presentation. So again, I clicked in my table. Click the Design tab up above and click the Style drop-down. Notice all of the styles at the top, there are styles that are the best match for the document. Then Light, then Medium, and as I scroll down, Dark. If you're asked to apply a specific style, you'll want to hover over it to find the correct name. If it starts with Light, you wanna look in the Light area. If it starts with Medium, you'll want to look in the Medium area.

So I'll go ahead and apply a style and click to select that. The other thing to experiment with in this design area of the ribbon are these table style options at the left. Notice what happens when I click first column, you can see the first column gets emphasis and becomes bold in this example. I'll go ahead and unclick that. Header row is already check box. That means that the header row is emphasized and bold in this case. Banded row is applying the stripe every other rows.

So you may be asked to apply something like a banded row, a banded columns. It's good to know about this area as well. That's an overview of creating and modifying PowerPoint tables. I recommend practicing the options for inserting tables and getting comfortable with table ribbon tabs for best success with these tasks in the MOS exam.