Sitting Down at the Tables

I remember when tables were introduced, first to QuarkXPress and later to InDesign. The excitement was off the charts. People couldn’t wait to insert tables in their layouts.

Sadly, not everyone knows when to use tables and when to use tabbed text. They also don’t know how to use some of the more sophisticated features in tables.

Tabs or tables/

Most spreadsheet or database programs will provide you with tabbed text that you can copy and paste or import into your document. If you create your own content instead of importing it, tabs are easy to insert. You click the Tab key and the tab character appears in the text.

A simple set of tabbed text is used for information that lines up correctly using tab separators.