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Why are there new Table Placeholders ?

The Table Format tool uses new table placeholders. These can be placed anywhere on a slide and are not restricted to the pre-defined slide layouts.

They look similar and behave in exactly the same way although there are a few important differences:

The new table placeholders can be quickly added to existing slides without using the task pane.

The new table placeholders have a pre-defined size and position and are repositioned automatically.

The new table placeholders can be easily replaced with tables copied from Excel.

You can have more than one table placeholder on a slide, you are not limited to just one.

If you delete a table from a slide an empty table placeholder will not be displayed.

How to insert the new Table Placeholders ?

Using this tool removes the need to use the task pane for inserting new table placeholders.

It is now possible to insert new table placeholders directly using the additional toolbar.

The drop-down box on the left of the toolbar displays the table placeholders that are available.

Lets imagine that we have a slide that only contains a title (see screen shot below).

Just select the placeholder you want to insert in the left drop-down box, in this case "Slide - Table".

 Insert Placeholder - Inserts a placeholder onto the current slide of the type selected in the drop-down box.

Press the button immediately to the right of the drop-down box.

The new table placeholder will be added to the existing slide.

Automatic Formatting

Double clicking on a table placeholder will display the Insert Table dialog box.

Once you have finished adding or changing the contents of a table the table will be automatically reformatted when you deselect the table.

The formatting of your text is restricted to try and ensure that all presentations look consistent.

Any changes to the formatting that are not recognised as company style will be removed automatically.

Lets imagine that there is a table of data and the following adjustments have been made.

The first column has been right aligned and the second column has had its font size increased to 24.

The fourth column has had its font increase to 22 and bold, italics and underline have been applied.

This can be temporarily switched off from the (Options > Settings)(General tab, Automatic Table Formatting).

Automatic Repositioning

Although the placeholders always default to the correct position on the slide it is possible that they may get repositioned or even resized.

The position of a table can be easily changed accidently by dragging the edge of the table.

The size of the table can be easily changed by dragging one of the resize handles.

The size and position of the tables is restricted to try and prevent users from squeezing too much text into a table or reducing the row height in order to fit more text on.

Once you have finished making the changes to your table the table will be automatically repositioned and resized when you deselect the table.

Things to Remember

The new placeholders will be printed and will not be automatically excluded when a presentation is printed.

The new table placeholders can be added to existing slides.

You don’t have to use the Table Placeholders to actually create your tables, you could create your tables in Excel and then copy then across.