Understanding Tables

A table is an object that conveys related information in columns and rows. If you've created tables in other applications, such as Word, you know how valuable they are for communicating information. Tables are also efficient and flexible. For example, rather than creating three separate bullet list slides, each listing the five most important features of your three main products, you could summarize all this information in a table on a single slide. You could still present information on individual slides, and then summarize everything in a table at the end of the presentation.

You can include a table in a PowerPoint presentation in one of two ways:

• Insert a table in PowerPoint ” PowerPoint's basic table insertion feature places a table into a slide based on the number of rows and columns you specify. You can then format, customize, and add data to the table.

• Draw a table in PowerPoint ” When you need to create a complex table, one that the basic table feature can't make, you can draw it right on your slide. It takes longer to draw your own table, though.

NOTE

You can also integrate tables from Microsoft Word, Excel, and Access with PowerPoint. To do this, choose Insert, Object to open the Insert Object dialog box. Select the Create from File option and browse to the file that contains the table you want to import.