InDesign for QuarkXPress Users [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

Setting Strokes and Fills

You can set the fill and stroke attributes for the table as a whole, or for individual cells. The colors available are those which have been created in the Swatches palette. While you can set the fill of a cell to None (which you can't do in XPress), you can't include dashed or dotted lines in a table stroke, as you can in XPress.

Both the Table Options dialog box and the Cell Options dialog box let you apply formatting to table cellsthe first globally, and the second to local selectionsand the settings in the Table Options dialog box typically override formatting applied to fills and strokes in individual cells. However, if you turn on the Preserve Local Formatting option in Table Options, local formatting won't get overridden.

Specifying the Table Border

The line which surrounds the table is called the

border . To set the border attributes, choose Table Options from the Table menu. In the Table Border section of the dialog box, you can set the border's line weight, color, line type, and overprinting attribute. Later in this section we show how you can also set the border attributes using the Stroke palette. If you don't want a table border, choose a stroke color of None.

Using the Cell Options Dialog Box

To set the fills and strokes for table cells with the Cell Options dialog box, select the cells you want to affect, choose Cell Options from the Table menu, and click on the Strokes and Fills panel. Here you can set the characteristics for the strokes of the selected table or cells: their weight, color, line type, and overprinting attributes. In the same dialog, you can set the fill color and overprinting characteristics.

When setting stroke attributes, use the proxy image to select which segments you want to apply the change to (see Figure 75-6). Click the segments to select and deselect themselected segments are blue, deselected segments are gray. For example, to change the outside strokes of the selected cells, click on the inside segments to deselect them. (Here are some shortcuts: Double-clicking any outside segment toggles selects or deselects all the outside segments. Double-clicking works similarly on inside segments. Triple-clicking anywhere in the proxy toggles between selecting and deselecting all the segments.)

You can use the Preview checkbox to preview the results, but because selecting cells inverses their color, you can't really see the resulting colors until you click OK and deselect the cells. (You can, however, watch the stroke and fill icons in the Tool palette to get some color-picking feedback.)

Using the Stroke and Swatches Palettes

An alternative way to set stroke and fill attributes for cells is to use the Stroke and Swatches palettes. First, select cells whose attributes you want to change. Then, to set stroke attributes, make sure the Formatting Affects Frame button is selected on the Swatches or Tools palettes (otherwise, the stroke will be applied to text within the cell; see Chapter 14). On the Stroke palette, click segments on the stroke proxy as described earlier to choose the strokes of the selected cells you want to affect, and then pick the stroke weight and line type in the Stroke palette. You can change the stroke color in the Swatches palette.

To select fill attributes, make sure the Fill button and Formatting Affects Frame buttons are selected on the Swatches or Tools palettes, and then select a color in the Swatches palette.

Adding Diagonal Lines

You can also apply diagonal lines to cells. Select the cells you want to affect, and choose Diagonal Lines from the Cell Options submenu (under the Table menu). In the Diagonal Lines panel, you can select the type of diagonal line you want, and whether it prints in front of or behind the contents of the cell. You can also choose the line's weight, line type, color, and overprinting attributes.