Inserting rows, columns and data

Hello students, welcome to Kwickprep. You made a marks table, and then a new student joins the class and a new subject is added. Do you make the table again? No. Today we learn to insert rows, columns and data into an existing table.

A quick reminder of terms. A row is a horizontal line of cells. A column is a vertical line of cells. A cell is the box where a row and a column meet. Before inserting anything, click inside a cell, because the new row or column is added next to that cell.

Here is our starting table. The first row shows the headings, roll number, name and maths. Roll one is Riya with seventy eight marks. Roll two is Aman with sixty five. Roll three is Zoya with ninety. Now let us grow this table.

In LibreOffice Writer, open Table, then Insert, and you see two row commands. Rows Above adds a new row above the cell with the cursor. Rows Below adds a new row below it. And pressing Tab in the last cell of the table quickly adds a row at the bottom. The same commands also appear when you right-click inside the table.

What if three new students join? Open Table, then Insert, then Rows with three dots, which opens a small dialog. Type how many rows you want, such as three. Choose before or after the current row, and click Insert. Another way is to select three existing rows first, then choose Rows Below, which adds three rows.

Columns work the same way. Open Table, then Insert. Columns Before adds a new column to the left of the cursor. Columns After adds a new column to the right. Columns with three dots lets you add many columns at once. In Microsoft Word, these commands are on the Table Layout tab as Insert Above, Below, Left and Right.

Time to predict. The cursor is in the maths heading cell, in the last column. You choose Table, then Insert, then Columns Before. Where does the new column appear? It appears between name and maths, because before means to the left of the cursor's column.

Here is the table after we inserted a column and a row. Maths is hidden here so the new Science column fits. We typed science marks for Riya, eighty two. Aman got seventy one. Zoya got eighty eight. We also added a row below for the new student, roll four, Dev, with seventy five.

Now, entering data correctly. Click a cell, or press Tab to reach it, and simply type. Keep one kind of data in each column, for example only marks in the science column. Remember that Enter adds a new line inside the same cell, it does not move to the next cell. You can also copy text and paste it into a cell.

Sometimes we must remove things too. Table, then Delete, then Rows or Columns removes the row or column with the cursor. Table, then Delete, then Table removes the whole table. Pressing the Delete key on selected cells only clears the data, and the empty cells remain. If you delete the wrong thing, press Control plus Z.

Writer can also add up a column for you. Click the empty cell where the total should appear. Choose Table, then Formula, or press F2, and a formula bar opens. Type equals sum, then the cell range in angle brackets, such as C2 to C5, and press Enter. Writer calculates the total, so you do not add the marks by hand.

Let us recap. Always click a cell first, because it decides where the new row or column goes. Use Rows Above or Rows Below, and Columns Before or Columns After. Rows with dots and Columns with dots add many at once. Table, then Delete, removes rows, columns or the whole table. The Delete key only clears data, not the cells.