Know Your Why!: 12 Days of Google Tips: Day 12 - Updated Table Properties in Google Documents

Tis the season of giving and I've been inspired by my PLN and a certain holiday song to share some Google Workspace Tips that I've either discovered or rediscovered in 2021. To be precise, the plan is two share 12 Google tips in addition to any other posts I am inspired to complete during the month of December. I will link other 12 Days of Google posts at the end of each post for your reference.

I made it. Today I am ready to share my 12 tip to celebrate my PLN as we wrap up 2021 and move to 2022. Today I wanted to share a bit about the new ways to customize tables in Google Docs. I am probably more excited about these updates than anything I've shared. I saved this for last because it hasn't fully rolled out for me and may not be available for all users yet.

I use tables in my Google Doc activities all the time with my students. For me it is the easiest and cleanest way to give students a space to respond to a prompt. I can even influence responses by changing the size of the table. Larger table rows often lead to longer responses even when I don't ask.

Here is a quick summary of the new table features in Google Docs

Pin a table header row to repeat on each page
Designate that a row should not be split across pages
Quickly add, and arrange columns and rows
Sorting tables to better organize data.
Use a new table sidebar to manage table properties

I have not been able to access the sidebar to manage table properties, but I am looking forward to this when if finally arrives.

My favorite new feature is the ability to Pin a table header row that will repeat on the next page. Without this feature, my students and I would lose the headers or need to create of new table if the current one started to move to a second page.

When I originally created the document I created a new table on the second page so we wouldn't lose the headers, now even if the students type so much that a new page is created, the header is automatically there. No need to create a second table!

My second favorite feature is the ability to turn off a row overflowing onto a new page. When you turn this off, then when the space is exceeded in the row at the end of the page, that row is automatically moved to the next page instead of the text splitting across two pages.

The old look when the text moves to a new page. (Overflow on.)