Multi-Cell Table Formatting
When working with large data grids, complex schedules, or detailed financial reports, formatting each cell individually can be incredibly tedious and time-consuming. To streamline your workflow and keep your designs consistent, Open Publisher features a powerful, high-performance bulk-formatting engine. This allows you to apply text alignments, fonts, typography styles, and colours to multiple table cells simultaneously, completely eliminating repetitive manual clicking.
Selecting Multiple Cells
To format an entire table at once, you first need to select all of its active cells. Open Publisher provides two quick methods to achieve this,
allowing you to choose the one that best fits your current workflow:
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The Green Cross Handle – Click the green cross icon that appears at the top-left corner of the table’s bounding box when it is selected. This is usually the fastest method for quick, visual layout edits.
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Context Menu – Right-click anywhere inside an active table and choose Select All Cells from the dropdown menu. This is highly convenient if your cursor is already active inside a specific cell and you don’t want to move your mouse away.
Applying Bulk Formatting
Once multiple cells (or the entire table) are selected and highlighted, any text-formatting action you trigger will cascade across all highlighted cells simultaneously. For example:
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Clicking Center Align from either the quick floating text toolbar or the main Home Ribbon will instantly center the text horizontally in every single selected cell.
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Clicking the 3×3 alignment grid located in the Table Design sidebar allows you to dictate both the horizontal and vertical alignment (such as middle-center or bottom-right) for the entire table in one single click.
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Applying typography changes—such as toggling Bold, changing the master font family, resizing the text, or adjusting the font colour—will dynamically update all selected cells in a rapid, seamless sequence to ensure visual uniformity.
Smart Cursor Restoration
Applying sweeping changes to large tables in some software can leave you wondering where your cursor disappeared to. After the bulk-formatting action is complete, Open Publisher’s editor safely and automatically restores your blinking cursor directly to the top-left cell of your selection. This thoughtful detail ensures you can immediately continue typing, tabbing, or navigating your grid using your keyboard without ever losing your place.