Tabulating numerical information - 2
Merging Cells
Typing in the data
Adding rows
Cell background colours
Merging cells
Now we need to merge the cells to put the column headings in. To do this, you
- Highlight the two cells to be merged to make the Non-Fundholder's heading. The easiest way to highlight is to click in the cell on the left, hold the shift key down, and then use the right arrow to move to the next cell.
- Select Table | Merge Cells from the Table menu
- Repeat for the next two heading cells
Your table should now look a bit like this
Typing in the data
The easy bit is typing in the data. Just
- Click in each cell and type the appropriate information.
- Highlight all the cells and click on the Centre tool bar button
Your table should end up looking a bit like this:
| Non-fundholders | Fundholders | |||
| Financial year | Days | No of patients | Days | No of patients |
| 1992-3 | 148.4 | 2655 | 111.8 | 536 |
| 1993-4 | 214.2 | 2067 | 129.2 | 855 |
| 1994-5 | 193.9 | 1865 | 119.1 | 1316 |
| 1995-6 | 194.6 | 1897 | 163.2 | 1326 |
Notice how the cells expand to accommodate the information.
Adding the heading and source rows
To add the caption and the title, we cheat a bit. You can add rows to a table - just
- click in the top row
-
select Table | Insert Rows or Columns from the Table menu item to bring up the Insert Rows or Columns dialog box
- Select Rows, and Above Selection (in this case) and click OK
- A new row appears, but the cells need to be merged into one long row
- Highlight the cells and select Table | Merge Cells from the Table menu item
- Type in the title 'Crawley District GPs' into the new row
- With the cursor in this row, right click and select Cell Properties from the menu - the Cell Properties dialog box should appear
- Select white as the Border colour in the Custom Colours section of the Cell Properties dialog box and click OK to accept your changes
- Save your changes!
Your table might look something like this:
| Crawley District GPs | ||||
| Non-fundholders | Fundholders | |||
| Financial year | Days | No of patients | Days | No of patients |
| 1992-3 | 148.4 | 2655 | 111.8 | 536 |
| 1993-4 | 214.2 | 2067 | 129.2 | 855 |
| 1994-5 | 193.9 | 1865 | 119.1 | 1316 |
| 1995-6 | 194.6 | 1897 | 163.2 | 1326 |
Cell background colours
Now you should try the following activities:
Now we need to merge the cells to put the column headings in. To do this, you
- Highlight the two cells to be merged to make the Non-Fundholder's heading. The easiest way to highlight is to click in the cell on the left, hold the shift key down, and then use the right arrow to move to the next cell.
- Select Table | Merge Cells from the Table menu
- Repeat for the next two heading cells
Your table should now look a bit like this
Typing in the data
The easy bit is typing in the data. Just
- Click in each cell and type the appropriate information.
- Highlight all the cells and click on the Centre tool bar button
Your table should end up looking a bit like this:
| Non-fundholders | Fundholders | |||
| Financial year | Days | No of patients | Days | No of patients |
| 1992-3 | 148.4 | 2655 | 111.8 | 536 |
| 1993-4 | 214.2 | 2067 | 129.2 | 855 |
| 1994-5 | 193.9 | 1865 | 119.1 | 1316 |
| 1995-6 | 194.6 | 1897 | 163.2 | 1326 |
Notice how the cells expand to accommodate the information.
Adding the heading and source rows
To add the caption and the title, we cheat a bit. You can add rows to a table - just
- click in the top row
-
select Table | Insert Rows or Columns from the Table menu item to bring up the Insert Rows or Columns dialog box
- Select Rows, and Above Selection (in this case) and click OK
- A new row appears, but the cells need to be merged into one long row
- Highlight the cells and select Table | Merge Cells from the Table menu item
- Type in the title 'Crawley District GPs' into the new row
- With the cursor in this row, right click and select Cell Properties from the menu - the Cell Properties dialog box should appear
- Select white as the Border colour in the Custom Colours section of the Cell Properties dialog box and click OK to accept your changes
- Save your changes!
Your table might look something like this:
| Crawley District GPs | ||||
| Non-fundholders | Fundholders | |||
| Financial year | Days | No of patients | Days | No of patients |
| 1992-3 | 148.4 | 2655 | 111.8 | 536 |
| 1993-4 | 214.2 | 2067 | 129.2 | 855 |
| 1994-5 | 193.9 | 1865 | 119.1 | 1316 |
| 1995-6 | 194.6 | 1897 | 163.2 | 1326 |
Cell background colours
Now you should try the following activities:
Activities
- Can you add the source row to the table by modifying the above instructions?
- Experiment with Cell Properties and background colours and text colours to increase the impact of the table.
- What happens if you set the border size to zero in Table Properties?
- What does Cell Padding do in Table Properties?
and your table might finally look like something the one below (a bit more eye catching than the original).
Crawley District GPs | ||||
| Non-fundholders | Fundholders | ||
Financial year | Days |
No of patients | Days | No of patients |
1992-3 | 148.4 | 2655 |
111.8 | 536 |
1993-4 | 214.2 | 2067 | 129.2 | 855 |
1994-5 | 193.9 | 1865 | 119.1 | 1316 |
1995-6 | 194.6 | 1897 | 163.2 | 1326 |
Source: BMJ 1997, 315: 290-292 | ||||
