Tables provide a compact way of presenting complex information in a layout. But many creative folk shudder at the prospect of designing them. Tables are boring and difficult to format, goes the common thinking. And tables mean using Excel, right? Ick.

Well, ever since Adobe InDesign 2, designing tables got a whole lot better .Tables are without a doubt one of InDesign's coolest features, letting you create not only sophisticated data charts but also clever image grids. InDesign CS adds several new table features, including automatic header and footer rows,

In this excerpt from "Real World InDesign CS," layout maestros Olav Martin Kvern and David Blatner takes you inside InDesign's prodigious table-creation feature. .

We've posted this excerpt as a PDF file. All you do is click this link "Tables" to open the PDF file in your Web browser. You can also download the PDF to your machine for later viewing.

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Excerpted from "Real World InDesign CS" © 2004 Olav Martin Kvern and David Blatner. Reproduced by permission of Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Peachpit Press. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.