Style your table

In this lesson we’re going to practice styling your table to give it visual interest and make the information stand out.

Table Styles

Click anywhere in your table. Notice how the menu ribbon changes? It now is on a group called “Table Tools” with the tabs “Design” and “Layout”.

Table tools in the menu ribbon

We’re going to use the “Design” tab to apply some colour to the table.

In the “Table Styles” section there’s a downwards arrow like this:

Table design styles

When you click on it, a whole bunch of styles appear. You can choose whatever style might make your table look nice.

Practice point: Apply the style in the image below. It is called “Grid Table 5 Dark – Accent 2”. Your table should look like this:

Table Style Options

When you applied the table style, you might have noticed that these features:

  • The top row is in dark orange
  • The first column is in dark orange
  • The rows of the table alternate with a medium orange and a light orange

These features are all optional, so let’s practice changing them.

In the top-left of your screen, is a section called “Table Style Options”.

The options there are:

  • Header Row – applies a style (in this case dark orange and bold font) to the first row in the table
  • Total Row -applies a style to the last row in the table
  • Banded Rows – makes the rows of the table alternate colours, so it’s easier to distinguish each row
  • First Column – applies a style to the first column in the table
  • Last Column – applies a style to the last column in the table
  • Banded Columns – makes the columns of the table alternate colours

Practice point: Use the Table Style Options to recreate this table: