Resizing Table Columns

[dimoj]

If you have a table with, for example, 3 rows and 3 columns, can you move the column widths in the first row without changing the column widths in the other two rows?
This can be done with Microsoft Word tables. I know that you can split a single cell vertically on one row and move that new column divsion around by shift-dragging it, but it cannot be moved wider than a column division that is in another row! This is very strange, does anyone have a solution.

 

[AdobeTim]

You can do what you want (if I'm understanding you correctly), by using the split vertically command and the merge command.

If you want one cell in a column to be wider than the rest, split one of the cell's that's next to it. You can then select the original cell and one of the new cell divisions and merge them into one cell. At that point you can select the vertical cell border, then hold down the shift key to adjust the sizing further without affecting the rest of the table.

Is this what you're after?

 

[jimoblak]

Hold down the SHIFT key while resizing one column.

 

[jimoblak]

Sorry - I replied before reading well enough into the question...

This is very strange, does anyone have a solution.[/] I hope you are referring to Word when you say 'strange'. I have never liked the way MS Word handles tables. InDesign works the same standard way that one looks at HTML table design. Splitting, merging, and aligning cells is the way that one breaks up the standard 'table grid'.

I can't believe that I am saying this but you could probably get away with this in Quark 5. Quark can draw tables and convert the cells to individual frames that can be tweaked in this way to your wildest dreams.

Doing this in InDesign just takes a little advanced planning to set up your split/merged rows and columns.

 

[dimoj]

Thanks Tim but that is already the way I have been doing it. Jimoblak, thanks for the comments. Unfortunately I don't have Quark but I agree with you about not liking MS Word tables except for this one thing; columns in a row can be moved completely independently from columns in other rows without needing to split/merge, or converting the table in any way. I hope this is something Adobe will look at for future releases of InDesign as it makes things very simple (I'd prefer not to use Word for anything, its kinda yuckky! Tee Hee).