Inserting and managing tables

You can insert a range of pre-formatted tables into your document.

How to insert a table

Place your cursor in the provision that you would like to insert your table after. Note that this can include Parts, Schedules and other non-text provisions.

Select to insert a table by:

Right-click menu Insert table
From the upper tool bar, select Insert > Insert table

Specify your table properties in the dialogue box that appears. See Table properties below.

Click Insert when you’ve selected your criteria.

Lawmaker will insert the table on the line below the text in your provision.

Creating back-to-back tables

You can create back-to-back tables by:

placing your cursor inside an existing table, and
inserting a table as usual using the ‘How to insert a table’ instructions above

The new table will be inserted after the existing table.

To change the order, you can use the structure view to drag and drop the tables into a new order.

How to update table properties

With your cursor in the table, select to update table properties by:

Right-click menu select Table > Update table
From the upper tool bar, select Insert > Update table

Specify your changes in the dialogue box that appears. See Table Properties below.

Click Update when you’ve specified your criteria.

Lawmaker will update your table.

Table properties

Specification	Notes
Number of rows and columns	Set at table insertion and cannot be updated. To add more rows / columns after table insertion, see 'How to insert additional rows or columns' below.
Column widths	Auto-size according to content - set column width depending on the amount of text in column cells, minimising line breaks. Specify Column Widths (%) - determine column width manually. Use figures accurate to two decimal places that sum to 100 (e.g. 33.33 and 66.67).
Styles and formatting	Table number - include/exclude a Table number. This creates a number element that can be renumbered like provisions (see Numbering). Table caption - include/exclude a Table caption and set its alignment in the document and styling. Header - include/exclude a Header row in the table and set the text alignment and styling. Text in a Header row can be aligned differently to text in the table body. The header row is included in the row count. Cell - set alignment and formatting of text throughout the table body. Font size - set font size. Row spacing: Compact reduces spacing between rows Hyphenation: Automatic introduces hyphenation when a word splits over two rows. This can reduce the appearance of text being ‘squished’ in narrow columns.
Page setup	Header displayed on all pages - if checked, this will be included in row count on all pages. Table width - in 10% increments up to 100% of the page width. Table alignment
Border options	Choose from five pre-set formats. NB: what appear here as faint lines will be invisible lines in the document.

If you have a table with lots of text which has ended up being ‘squished’, and you want to improve formatting and readability, try:

reducing font size (e.g. to 8)
setting Row spacing to Compact
setting Hyphenation to Automatic
experimenting with Specify column widths (%) - e.g., increase the width of a column that generally has more text in

Inserting table content

It is possible to fill in a table cell with either plain text or structured content.

To type plain text, simply click on the ‘Text’ placeholder and type.

Structured content

With your cursor in the Text placeholder, press the Enter key to bring up the Content Completion Assistant.

Select the desired content to insert as you would when inserting provisions in the main body of the document.

It is possible to insert, for example, paragraphs, sub-paragraphs, and quoted structures in a table.

See the relevant sections of this user manual under Drafting and Editing for further information.

How to insert additional rows or columns

With your cursor in the appropriate cell, select to insert a row or column by:

Right-click menu select Table > Insert row before/Insert row after/Insert column to the left and insert column to the right
From the upper toolbar, select Insert > Insert row before/Insert row after/Insert column to the left and insert column to the right

The system will insert the appropriate row/column to your table based on your cursor location.

If you insert a new row with your cursor in the table header, you will create a new row within the header.

How to delete a row or a column

With your cursor in a cell in the selected column/row, specify you would like to delete the column or row by:

Right-click menu select Table > delete row/column
From the upper toolbar, select Insert > delete row/column

The system will delete the selected row/column based on the cursor location.

If there is only one column or row left in the table, deleting it will delete the whole table.

How to delete a table

Place cursor in the table that you want to delete.

Click on Tbl block in the breadcrumb or select table from the structure view.

Press delete or backspace on your keyboard.

The system will remove the table completely from your document.

How to merge, unmerge and split cells

Merge cells:

Highlight the cells you wish to merge. Right-click and select Table > Merge cells

You cannot vertically merge cells in the header row with rows below. To merge cells in the header, first insert a new row in the header (see above).

Unmerge cells:

Right-click in the cell you wish to unmerge. Select Table > Unmerge cells

Splitting cells: It is not possible to directly split a cell that was not previously merged.

However, you can work around this by creating additional rows or columns (see above) and merging these, except the cells you wish to split.