Working with a Table Object on a Draftsman Document in Altium Designer

Parent page: Draftsman Objects

A placed Table with a range of cell formatting.

Summary

A Draftsman Table is a custom table object that can contain any text data. The Table object offers a wide range of text and structure editing features, which can be implemented on a cell row or column basis using standard Shift/Ctrl or drag selection techniques. The table's visual style is configurable in the Properties panel.

Availability

A Table is available for placement in a PCB project Draftsman document from the Editor as follows:

• Choose the Place » Table command from the main menu).
• Click the Table entry () in the table objects drop-down menu on the Active Bar located at the top of the workspace. Click and hold an Active Bar button to access other related commands. Once a command has been used, it will become the topmost item on that section of the Active Bar.
  
• Right-click in the drawing workspace then select Place » Table from the context menu.
• Click the Table () entry in tables drop-down menu () on the Drawing Annotations toolbar (View » Toolbars » Drawing Annotations to enable).

Placement

Launching the Table command will open the Insert table dialog, where the number of rows and columns for the new table can be specified. After clicking OK in the Insert table dialog, the new table is attached to the cursor and can be placed in the desired location with an additional click.

Graphical Editing

The position of a placed Table may be graphically changed by selecting the table object in the workspace then dragging it to a new location using its Move handle, i.e. the icon at the top-left corner. Note that the table cannot be graphically resized, but will automatically scale to accommodate the font and cell/column properties as specified in the Properties panel.

Drag a selected table's Move icon to reposition it in the workspace. Right-click in a cell to access row/column manipulation options.

Content is added to a Table by typing or pasting into a cell. Use the Shift+Enter keys to add a new line within a cell.

Further Table editing options are available by right-clicking in a cell (or selected group of cells) then selecting the Table commands from the context menu. The commands allow rows or columns to be added or deleted, and cells to be merged or un-merged. Note that a launched command will apply to the currently selected cell(s).

Non-Graphical Editing

Properties page: Table Properties

The non-graphical method of editing a Table is available in the Draftsman Properties panel, which provides a range of editable properties and style settings for placed Draftsman objects.

The Properties panel when a Table is selected.

To open the Properties panel and access the properties of a placed Table:

• Double-click on the Table object in the workspace.
• Right-click on the Table then select Item Properties from the context menu.

If the Properties panel is already active:

• Click on the Table object to access its properties in the panel.

To manually open the Properties panel, select View » Panels » Properties from the main menu or click the button at the bottom right of the workspace then select Properties from the pop-up menu.