Tables

Tables give you real rows and columns for price lists, spec sheets, schedules and menus: no more faking a grid with text frames and lines. Every table is styled through a live cascade, so one edit can restyle the whole grid at once.

Insert a table#

1. Open the Object menu and choose Add table.
2. A 4 by 3 table lands in the middle of the Canvas, with one header row prefilled with Column 1, Column 2 and so on.
3. With the table selected, the Table section appears in the Properties panel.

The first table you add also seeds a default table style named Basic, plus two cell styles (Header Cell and Body Cell). Basic is a quiet, print-friendly look: hairline row rules, no column rules, a stronger rule under the header, and light zebra striping. Its grays are built as black-only tints, so hairlines stay crisp on press.

Set the structure#

In the Table section of Properties you control the grid itself:

Header and footer rows sit outside the zebra-stripe rhythm, so inserting body rows never knocks your header out of style.

Select cells and type#

Tables use a click ladder, so a single click never traps you inside a cell:

1. Click once to select the whole table (move, resize, rotate as usual).
2. Click again to select the cell under the cursor. Drag to select a range, or Shift+click to extend it.
3. Double-click to edit the cell's text in place.
4. Press Escape to walk back up a level at each step.

While a cell is selected, the keyboard works like a spreadsheet:

• Arrow keys move the selection; hold Shift to extend a range.
• Tab and Shift+Tab step through cells. Tab past the last cell adds a new row.
• Enter or F2 starts editing; just typing replaces the cell's content.
• Delete or Backspace clears the selected cells.
• Cmd/Ctrl+A selects every cell in the table.

Cell text is regular text: select it while editing and use the character and paragraph controls as normal. See Paragraph and character styles for reusable text formatting.

Paste from a spreadsheet#

You can fill a table straight from Excel, Google Sheets or any app that copies tab-separated text:

1. Copy a block of cells in your spreadsheet.
2. In Popcorn Editor, click into the table until a cell is selected (click twice).
3. Paste. The data fans out to the right and down from the selected cell.

The table grows new rows automatically to fit the pasted data. Extra columns beyond the table's width are dropped, so add columns first if your data is wider than the grid.

Tip: for designs that repeat one layout across many data rows (labels, badges, cards), Data merge is usually the better tool than a giant table.

Resize, add and remove rows and columns#

Drag a column or row boundary to resize it; the cursor changes when you are over a boundary. Hold Shift while dragging a column boundary to keep the total table width constant (the neighbor gives up the space).

Right-click the table for structural commands:

• Rows: Insert row above, Insert row below, Delete row(s), Distribute rows evenly
• Columns: Insert column left, Insert column right, Delete column(s), Distribute columns evenly
• Clear cell contents empties the selected range without deleting rows

New rows and columns copy the formatting of the neighboring cells, never their content.

Borders and alternating fills#

With the table selected, the Properties panel exposes the shared look:

• Table style picks a named style for the whole table, or None for a bare grid.
• Borders sets a width and color for each rule family: Outer border, Row rules, Column rules and Header rule. Set a width to 0 to remove that rule.
• Alternating fills controls zebra banding: choose Rows, Columns or None under Banding, set Every to stripe in groups (every 2 rows, for example), and pick the First fill and Second fill colors.

These edits write into the table's style. If that style is shared with other tables, the editor quietly forks a private copy first, so your other tables keep their look. Banding is positional, which means inserting a row restripes everything below it automatically.

Format individual cells#

Select a cell or range and a Cell section appears in Properties:

• Cell style applies a named cell style, or None.
• Cell fill overrides the background color (spot colors and CMYK values are supported, like swatches elsewhere).
• Vertical align sets Top, Middle or Bottom.
• Cell padding sets the four inset values.
• Clear cell overrides strips local tweaks so the cell falls back to its styles.

To save a look for reuse, use the Table styles section: New table style captures the selected table's formatting, and New cell style from selection does the same for cells. You can rename, duplicate, update and delete named styles from the same list.

Note: overrides always win over styles, so a stubborn cell that will not restyle probably has a local override. Clear cell overrides resets it.

Next steps#

Tables inherit their type defaults from your document, so it pays to set up paragraph and character styles first. If your table content lives in a CSV and drives many copies of a design, read Data merge next.