Working with Tables in InDesign: Adding Professional Costs to Your Proposal

Creating a Detailed Table for Professional Cost Breakdown in InDesign

Learn how to create tables effectively by using selection tools and adjusting rows and columns in a digital document. This article offers a step-by-step guide on how to add tables, input data, and modify table dimensions to suit professional needs.

Key Insights

  • Tables can be created in a digital document by using the selection tool and clicking on 'create table' which allows for customizing table dimensions including rows, columns, header rows and footer rows.
  • After the table is set up, data can be entered manually. For example, by typing in the words or values and using the down arrow on the keyboard to proceed to the next row.
  • Table cells can be manipulated to meet specific needs. For instance, two cells can be merged into one to create a header cell by selecting both cells and using the 'merge cells' option.

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In this video, we'll begin working with tables. Within our Request for Proposal, we have some details that we need to add to our proposal about our professional costs.

So let's close this out and open up our folder where we can find the details for this within our fee breakdown. If we open up our fee breakdown file, an Excel Spreadsheet, we can see the details of this. Feel free to print that out or leave it off to the side, as we'll soon be using it.

Next, let's go into Pages 12 and 13 and we'll begin by hitting W, and we're going to remove the Baseline Grid for these pages. We'll then apply the B Master by right-clicking and going to Apply Master to Pages and selecting B Master. From here, let's change the title of our first page by holding CTRL + SHIFT, and we're going to retitle this one Proposal Fulfillment Costs.

Next, let's begin by adding our table. To do this, we'll utilize our Selection Tool and go to the top menu, select Table, then click Create Table. From here, we have some options for our table dimensions.

We can adjust the rows and columns as well as header rows and footer rows. In this case, we're going to need 15 total rows for this first table. We'll go back into InDesign, select 15, and for our columns, select 2. We'll then hit OK, and here our cursor is currently loaded with the table. So let's simply drag our table out, and we'll make it about this size and release. We'll see that we have our table added.

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From here, we simply need to input the data. We'll start by typing the first word: Investigations. Then, using the down arrow on the keyboard, we can type Field Investigation. On the right side, we'll type in $80. For our top row, since it's going to be a header, we want it to be one cell rather than two. To do this, we're going to select both cells by coming to the left-hand side of our table, seeing the arrow, and clicking. From here, we'll then right-click and click Merge Cells. This will merge both into simply one cell, and we now have a header cell.

I’ll let you continue filling out the rest of the table, and I’ll be back once we’re done.

Matt Fons

Adobe Instructor

Matt is a jack of all trades in the realm of marketing and an expert using Adobe’s Creative Cloud as the essential software for supporting students and clients. With experience in graphic design, photography, web design, social media planning, and videography, Matt creates impressive and comprehensive marketing strategies. In his free time, Matt and his wife enjoy surfing and hiking California’s Central Coast and traveling to countries around the world.

  • Adobe Certified Instructor
  • Adobe Certified Specialist
  • Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign
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