Adobe Table in PageMaker?

[Geoff Hart <ghart -at- videotron -dot- ca>]

Betty Faulkner reports: <<I read an archive where you said that you had 
no problems with Adobe Table... I have nothing but problems!>>

For one thing, you may want to upgrade to PM 7 (the latest version). In 
my experience (mostly Mac, some PC), it's much more stable. Table runs 
fine, but is so frustrating to use that I've never done more than play 
with it. The biggest problem is that the tables aren't editable within 
PageMaker, so you're always forced to go back to Table with edits. 
Inefficient.

My recommendation: The easiest way to create tables is to send 
PageMaker tab-delimited text. You can then create a style for each 
table, set the tabs interactively (PM lets you preview the effects of a 
tab and drag tabs around until you get the desired columns). Voila! You 
know have fully editable text. Add any lines or shading that you need 
manually. If you put the tables in their own text box, the lines etc. 
travel easily with the table when you move it.

This approach doesn't work very well with long lines of text in a 
single column, since you have to manually break the text to fit. With 
that kind of table, you may have to resort to using Table. This raises 
your problems:

<<When I insert an existing table or create a new one in PageMaker, it 
is placed in the middle of my two-page spread. I
drag it into the column where I want it and change the text flow to 
above/below, but when I print the brochure, the table still prints in 
the middle of the two pages, even though it appears in the column on 
screen!>>

The table shouldn't inevitably be appearing in the middle of the 
spread; when you import a graphic or other object in PM, the cursor 
changes to an icon representing the type of thing you're importing so 
you can move the cursor to the desired location and drop the object 
there. You can drag the cursor to select the location where the object 
appears and the size of the object. Try this first. If it doesn't work, 
change your view to single-page mode rather than two-page spread. You 
may just have discovered a bug.

<<I also have really inconsistent results with being able to 
successfully modify and update linked tables (by double-clicking, 
working in Table, then returning to PageMaker). Sometime the Update 
button is available and not Save, and sometime it's the other way 
around.>>

If that's the case, close the PM file and open the table directly in 
Table. Save and close the file, then reopen the PM file. The table 
should now update correctly. I'm guessing the problem is that Table 
isn't successfully communicating to PM the fact that the table has 
changed, probably because the "edit in place" feature isn't setting 
some kind of flag properly. But closing and reopening a PM file should 
always update the linked files.

--Geoff Hart   ghart -at- videotron -dot- ca
(try geoffhart -at- mac -dot- com if you don't get a reply)


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