By default tables have no outer padding (a.k.a. spacing) so they butt up directly against any text before or after the table. I just created a macro to add 0.3 spacing above and below tables. But why should I have to use a macro to fix every table I create? Why doesn’t the default table have good spacing? And better yet, why can’t we have table styles that apply spacing and other table properties?
You may use AutoText for table templates. AutoText is saved in an extra file (suffix: bau) so that you can apply your AutoText parts in each new (or old) Wrtiter document.
I understand that the table situation is not charming.
AutoText is neat. Thanks for drawing my attention to it, but I think a macro makes more sense when I simply want to adjust the table style rather than inserting a blank table with a pre-defined number of columns and rows.
Well, you want 0.3 spacing and I want 0.5, Joe wants 0.8. As you can guess there are as many “reasonnable” defaults as users. Don’t forget also spacing at left and right, borders (I want them, you don’t) and many other parameters.
But after pointing out the dificulty to come to an agreement on defaults, you highlight a good point: the lack of a good design for table style. I support your claim that it should define properties under user control just like paragraph or character styles do.
The feature should allow to create new styles based on dialog Table>Table Properties so that modifying a style would update all so styled tables. Styles should also be hierarchically organised (inheriting from other) so that we can defined logically related tables.
The present so-called table styles do not satisfy these requirement. IMHO they are rather templates: you can’t change them and once inserted, only direct formatting can modify the layout or formatting.
I just dream aloud here in the hope skilled user-caring developer would consider this feature. There already have been a few feature request submitted on the topic. Check in Bugzilla.