Nisus Writer Express - Manual (Page 159)

Creating Documents Book Tools 139
Tables
What is a table?
A table is a means of presenting a group of related data in a coherent, structured form. Tables are
used to
• summarize large amounts of data
• compare data for two or more cases
• group complex data so that relationships are clear
• convey statistics about the underlying data
• list a full matrix of related data.
Tables have a wide variety of uses and, because of the divergent uses, they may take on many
different styles as well. There is no “right” or “wrong” way to organize and format a table.
Types of tables
The simplest possible table is one that has at least two entries (and usually has corresponding
headers that define the data within the table).
Table 4
A very simple table
Tables can grow as big as you’d like, although there is a practical limit to their size—usually what
will fit onto a single page. Huge tables that sprawl over several pages are extremely difficult to
understand at a glance, and the relationships between the data become less distinct when you
build, multi-page tables. Nevertheless, you will find that big tables are useful when your ultimate
goal is to compile an organized reference to a large, underlying database.
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One important distinction to make in creating a table is whether or not the table is a summary of
information in an unseen database, or an exhaustive listing of the entire data in the database. The
former tends to result in small, concise tables that tell a story or highlight a particular point or
statistic. The latter are often long, multi-page tables that are only consulted as references. Nisus
Writer Express’s table capability can handle both.
Tycho
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