Comments on: #FridayFact: Tables Can Be Boring

By: Kimberly

Kimberly — Mon, 19 Feb 2018 19:01:40 +0000

Most of these tips I have found on my own during my academic career such as applying shading and borders and rotating font. Especially when a table contains a lot of information, I have had to come up with ways to make certain information stand out which has lead to a lot of time playing around with making tables and charts in Excel and Word. However, I have never considered using or tried to use the AutoFormat feature, partly because it never worked for me and partly because I forget that it is an option. Seeing the capabilities of this feature though and how it can make the information stand out even more makes me more inclined to learn how to use AutoFormat for future projects. Yet another helpful resource.

By: tengrrl

tengrrl — Mon, 19 Feb 2018 04:38:38 +0000

I’ve used columns in resumes, though not tables per se. They didn’t have borders, etc. Columns can certainly be handy when you have shorter lists of information, like lists of skills or relevant courses.

By: Cassie Bienert

Cassie Bienert — Sun, 18 Feb 2018 20:40:45 +0000

You’re exactly right Mark! I liked how the “10 easy ways to turn a dull word table into a design element” not only featured ways to make a table flow better in your document, but also ways to make it stand out. I also agree with the importance of tables summarizing key points. Often times, I find them the most helpful in understanding writings since they should summarize the key points or data results. Of course, a poor table design defeats the purpose of making the writing easier to read so It really is essential that the organization and layout is optimized.

I wonder if anyone puts tables in their resumes? It would be a creative element and if done correctly, it could definitely highlight your skills and experience.

By: Zack Silverman

Zack Silverman — Sat, 17 Feb 2018 05:13:38 +0000

I think the 10 ways article was presented much more clearly and concisely than the 8 ways article, though the 10 ways article did seem to stick to pretty obvious recommendations that I could have thought of myself. I figure a good piece of advice I could give would be to bold a specific region of the table you felt was the most important, such as a piece that follows a trend or one that provides specifically applicable information to the reader. That doesn’t help much with this project, but as a statistics major, I work with a lot of tables and that would help me in my own field.

By: Kelvin Prempeh

Kelvin Prempeh — Sat, 17 Feb 2018 05:03:59 +0000

I agree with some of the comments on here about the ” 10 Easy Ways to Turn a Dull Word Table into a Design Element” article being the most helpful. It goes into very good details about the small features and design aspects that can applied to a table to make it more appealing and easier on the eyes. Also, I believe Microsoft has done a great job with Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, to provide a myriad of design styles and formatting tools that are easy to implement. All the same, there is a learning curve to this and the more you do it, the better you get at it.
Great articles!

By: Christian Arroz

Christian Arroz — Sat, 17 Feb 2018 00:59:21 +0000

Definitely agreeing with the crowd here on Jody Gilbert’s article being the most helpful. Adding space between the cells creates a focus effect for me and having a background/surrounding color around the cells can help categorize my information in ways not visible with simple black-and-white tables. The tip on turning the text sideways I like because it can simplify the content and make it easier to read! Great article

By: Zachary Maners

Zachary Maners — Sat, 17 Feb 2018 00:48:23 +0000

As someone who rarely formats tables I thought both articles were very helpful, especially the second article since it provided visual pictures of what they were talking about. I think the first article dove more into “professional” tables, such as providing a analytical table at a conference/presentation. I never considered how important a table could be, especially when it comes to visuals. I gathered that you want to showcase information in a table so that it stands out. It’s easy to create a simple table from the default settings in Word, however, the way you format the table is what can separate it from being accepted as professional or not.

By: Carolina Martyn

Carolina Martyn — Fri, 16 Feb 2018 22:13:37 +0000

I found “10 easy ways etc.” much more helpful from an aesthetics standpoint than the “8 Formatting Tips” article. I felt as though the latter would be more helpful in a data analytics situation rather than a table formatting situation. It seemed like it was just a bunch of Excel tricks so that you don’t have to redo your whole table if you mistake rows for columns for example. “10 easy ways” gave more useful tips for design of the tables as well as how to implement those design tips. Overall, I found both to be interesting, but the former to be much more helpful.

By: Zachary Cohen

Zachary Cohen — Fri, 16 Feb 2018 21:36:05 +0000

I found these articles to be really useful and full of new information. Usually when I make tables in Microsoft Word they’re extremely utilitarian, and I don’t often put much thought into the aesthetics of the table. But now that I have learned some of these techniques I’m looking forward to implementing them in my work. I especially thought the information in the article on turning text sideways in a table was interesting because I didn’t actually know that it was that easy to do in Word, and I can envision a lot of scenarios where that would be very useful.

By: Nathan Hogye

Nathan Hogye — Fri, 16 Feb 2018 18:13:59 +0000

Both articles provided useful information about creating and formatting tables in Word but I agree with the other comments that the “10 easy ways to turn a dull Word table into a design element” article was the most helpful, especially for our current assignment. The other article provided information on editing and formatting tables in Word which will be helpful in the future but not necessarily for the analysis of writing assignment. I agree that spacing in the table is very important since it prevents the table from looking cramped and improves the overall appearance of the table.