Modifying Cell and Row Properties

Cells have their own properties, separate from the properties of the table itself. So do table rows—but not columns (see the box on The Dawn of Columns).

When you click inside a cell, the top half of the Property inspector displays the cell’s text formatting properties; the bottom half shows the properties for the cell itself (see Figure 7-6).

The Property inspector displays the settings of a cell. If you select an entire row of cells, or select <tr> in the Tag selector, the background color property (listed as Bg on the Property inspector shown here) applies to the <tr> tag—to the whole row, in other words. But the Width, Height, No Wrap, or Header options affect the individual cells in the row only.

Figure 7-6. The Property inspector displays the settings of a cell. If you select an entire row of cells, or select <tr> in the Tag selector, the background color property (listed as Bg on the Property inspector shown here) applies to the <tr> tag—to the whole row, in other words. But the Width, Height, No Wrap, or Header options affect the individual cells in the row only.

Alignment Properties

At the outset, a cell’s contents hug the left wall and float halfway between the top and bottom of the cell. After selecting a row, a cell, or several cells, you can change these alignments using the Property inspector. For example, the Horz (Horizontal) menu (see Figure 7-6) offers Left, Center, Right, and Default alignment options. (Default produces the same effect as Left without adding any extra HTML code.)

Note that these options are distinct from the paragraph alignment options discussed in Chapter 3. In fact, you can mix and match the two. Suppose you have a table cell containing four paragraphs. You want to center-align ...

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