Rows, columns, and the size ceiling
The grid holds up to 40 rows and 12 columns. You can resize by setting a row count and a column count inside those bounds, and you can add or remove a row or a column next to the selected cell. Adding places the new row after the selected row, or the new column after the selected column, and moves the selection onto what you just added so you can type immediately. Removing deletes the selected row or the selected column, not a mystery row at the bottom. The last remaining row and the last remaining column cannot be removed. A table with no cells is not a state the editor offers.
Use resize when you already know the finished shape, such as "six days plus a label column" or "twenty students and five assignments." Use add and remove when you are still discovering the shape and you want the new field to appear beside the cell you are thinking about, rather than at the far edge where you will forget it. If add appears to do nothing, count before you assume a bug. At 40 rows or 12 columns there is nowhere to grow. Split the material into two titled tables, or leave the long list in a spreadsheet and bring a readable slice here.
Shrinking the grid drops the cells that fall outside the new size. Undo can bring back a removal you just made. It is still wiser to export, or to copy as tab-separated text, before you cut a grid in half, especially on a shared computer where you might not be the next person to press the buttons. Empty rows are not free in a reading sense even though they are free in price. A trailing blank row looks like a question you forgot to answer. Delete it before you print.
Selection is the quiet control under everything else. The selected cell is where typing lands, where paste begins, and where add and remove take their bearings. On a phone, tap the cell you mean and glance at the selection before you delete a column. A delete aimed at the wrong column is the fastest way to lose a list of phone numbers you have not yet exported.
Header modes
Headers have four modes: none, top row, first column, or both. None means every cell is body. Top row means the first row is the header, which is right for a list of items with field names across the top. First column means the left edge, in a left-to-right table, is the header, which is right when the stub labels run downward and the other columns are values. Both means the top row and the first column are headers, including the corner, which is right for a matrix such as a weekly schedule or a gradebook.
Choose the mode before you spend time on header color. The mode decides which cells receive header fill and header text color. Switching from top row to both suddenly treats the first column as a header too, which is what you want for names down the side, and surprising if that column was ordinary data you had tinted yourself. Look at one sample row after you switch. If the wrong cells went bold in spirit, switch back and move the labels instead of fighting the mode.
The corner cell, when both axes are headers, should name the row stubs in a word or two: Time, Student, Item, Criterion. It should not hold a paragraph. Readers use it as a key. A blank corner is tolerable. A corner full of marketing copy is not, because it steals the one place where the two axes meet.
No header is for a rare grid that is already a fragment inside a page that labels it, or for a momentary draft. The moment the table leaves your screen, turn a header on. Future you is a second reader. The tips page shows how schedules and research tables usually pick "both" or "top" for that reason.
Typing, Tab, Enter, and line breaks
Click or tap a cell and type. Tab moves across the row. Enter moves down the column. Those two keys are the whole navigation habit you need for data entry. Shift+Enter inserts a line break inside the cell rather than leaving it. Use the line break for a short second line that still belongs to the same field, such as a name and a role, or a task and a parenthetical warning. Do not use it to fake a second row. A second row can be striped, selected, and deleted. A line break cannot.
Keep line breaks rare in columns you will sort elsewhere later. CSV and Excel will carry the text, but a cell with several lines is clumsier in a spreadsheet than two columns would have been. If you are unsure, prefer another column while you are still in Tabley. You have twelve, and you probably do not need all of them.
Pasted text can include blank lines. After a large paste, scan the edges of the block, not only the first cell. The first cell looking correct is how people miss a shift of one column that starts halfway down. Read the last row and the last column before you apply color.
Undo and redo
Undo and redo step through changes the editor records, such as resizing, adding and removing rows or columns, styling, case changes, clearing, pasting a block, and applying a template. Use them immediately when a gesture was wrong. They are the difference between a calm edit and a reconstruction from memory.
Do not treat undo as an archive. It lives with the session's editing state, not as a file you can email to yourself. Title and caption edits and ordinary cell typing are still your text to protect by export. If you are about to try a destructive experiment, such as applying a template that replaces the grid, copy the tab-separated text or export a CSV first. Redo is only there if you have undone something and have not marched off into a new change that discards the forward stack. The habit that never fails is a downloaded file of anything you would be upset to lose.
Color scope, swatches, picker, and hex
Text color and cell fill apply to a scope you choose: the selected cell, its row, its column, or every cell. Scope is the control that keeps color fast and also the control that causes accidents. Check the scope label before you click a swatch. "All cells" is right when you are setting the base ink of the table. It is wrong when you meant to mark a single late assignment. The row scope is how you highlight one person or one time slot. The column scope is how you tint a whole field, such as a status column, without touching names.
Swatches are the short list of ready colors. Prefer them when you have no brand requirement, because they keep casual tables inside a palette that can still contrast. The color picker is for a color you need to point at. The hex field is for a color someone specified as six digits, which is common in school brands and shop guides. Type the hex with the usual leading mark, and do not invent extra digits. If a code is refused, check that it is a full six-digit value rather than a three-digit shorthand or a color name.
A cell can carry its own text color and fill on top of broader choices. If a cell will not take the column color the way you expect, look for an earlier cell-level choice still sitting on it. There is a way to drop back to the default when you want the override gone rather than replaced with a different paint. Clearing an override is cleaner than painting white on white and hoping.
Header fill and header text color are separate controls from body text and body fill. They follow the header mode, not the "all cells" scope. People often set a dark header, then paint all cells cream, and are surprised the header stayed dark. That is the design. The header should remain identifiable. Set header fill and header text as their own decision: usually a deep fill and a light text, or a light fill and a near-black text. Then set body colors. Then, if you need one exception inside the header, you can still style that cell, but do not let exceptions become the main method.
Stripes and the low-contrast warning
Striped body rows paint alternating body rows with a stripe color you choose. The stripe is a reading aid, not a code. It answers "which line am I on" in a long list of similar names. Turn it on for inventories, contacts, gradebooks, and research tables. Leave it off for a small pricing matrix where each row is already a distinct feature and extra bands add noise. The stripe color should be a small step from the body fill, not a second header. If you cannot tell header from stripe at arm's length, lighten the stripe.
Header cells keep header colors when stripes are on, so the top row does not become just another band. Check the first body row after the header. The alternation should start in a way that still separates that row from the header. If everything blends, you have chosen neighbors that are too close, even if no single pair tripped a warning.
The low-contrast warning speaks when text and the fill behind it are too close to read comfortably. It is advice at edit time, aimed especially at printing. Pale yellow on white, light gray on white, and white on a bright pastel are the usual triggers. Fix the pair. Darken the text, or choose a fill that can carry dark text, or both. Do not export a warned combination because you like the brand tint. A brand tint can live in the header, where you can pair it with light letters, and the body can stay quiet.
The warning is not a complete accessibility review. It does not know your projector, your paper, or a reader's vision. It will not catch a meaning that exists only as color, such as "red means absent" with no word in the cell. Write the word. Use color as a repeated reinforcement. After a fix, trust your eyes on an actual PDF or print at the final size, not only the on-screen cell at editing size.
Bold, italic, underline, and case
Bold, italic, and underline can apply to the selected cell or to the same scopes you use for color, depending on how you have the scope set. Bold is for a total, a decision, or one blocked event. Italic is for a note, a scientific name, or a title of a work inside a cell. Underline is the one to use least, because on a page it imitates a link. If the header mode already marks headers, do not also bold every header cell out of habit. You will have no emphasis left when a real total arrives.
Case controls rewrite letters. UPPER case is for short codes and for almost nothing else. lower case folds a messy paste into a single voice so you can repair proper names afterward. Title case lifts the start of words. It is helpful for headings you typed in a hurry and harmful for names that are not title case in real life, for units, and for sentences. Case is a text change, not a costume. Undo if you ran it across the wrong scope. Read names after any case pass. "Mc" and "de" and hyphenated given names are where automatic title case looks careless.
Apply case only after the words are final enough to keep. If you still expect to edit a sentence, Title case will fight you on every correction. Write in ordinary sentence case, and use the case buttons as a cleanup, not as the keyboard.
Alignment
Align left, center, or right, again with a scope so a whole column can share one rule. Words and names align left. Numbers you compare, including prices, quantities, and scores, align right so the digits stack. Center is for short marks: a yes, a no, a dash that means "not offered," a single letter status. Centered paragraphs are hard to read and look accidental in a table.
Do not center a column of money because the header looks nicer centered. Align the header with the data under it, or accept a left header only if the column is so narrow that right alignment collides with the border. Mixed alignment inside one column should be rare. A note under a number can be a caption, or a second column, instead of a centered sentence squeezed between right-aligned prices.
In Arabic interface mode the page is right to left. Your alignment choice still means the alignment you pick in the control. After you set a column, look at it in the language of the cells. Do not assume the interface direction silently fixed a column of mixed English codes and Arabic labels. The about page makes the same point for a reason: direction of the chrome and direction of the data are related but not identical.
Fonts, type size, and padding
Three font families are available: sans, serif, and mono. Sans is the default for a reason. It is the least surprising on a screen and on a classroom printer. Serif suits a formal program, a literary comparison, or a page that should feel closer to a book than to a dashboard. Mono suits SKUs, student IDs, times, hex colors, and any column where one wrong character matters. You choose one family for the table, not a different family in every cell. If a single column needs mono and the rest should stay sans, prefer mono for the whole table when the codes are the point, or keep sans when the codes are few and the prose is the point. There is no per-cell font family. Plan the table around that, instead of expecting a publishing suite.
Type size scales the words. Larger type is for signs, projected grade summaries, and any table read from further than a desk. Smaller type is for a dense sheet you will read up close. Padding is independent: compact, normal, or roomy. Compact puts the ink closer to the borders so more rows fit on a page. Roomy puts air in the cell so a finger or a pencil has a target and so a projected row is easier to track. Normal is the right answer until a real constraint appears. A common mistake is roomy padding plus a large type size plus twelve columns, which forces the reader to scroll sideways through a title that claimed to be a one-page list. Drop padding to compact or drop a column before you shrink the type into unreadability.
Padding does not change what you typed. It changes whether a two-line cell looks like a paragraph or like a label. After you change it, re-read any cell that uses Shift+Enter. The line break may need to become a new row once the cell is taller, or it may finally look intentional once the cell is roomy enough.
Borders
Borders are solid, dashed, dotted, or none. Border color and border weight apply with that style. Solid is the print default. It survives a photocopier and a photograph of a stall sign. Dashed is a secondary structure, useful when you want the outer grid quiet and one separation visible, or when a totals row should feel ruled differently. Dotted is a light on-screen guide. None relies on spacing, stripes, or header fill to separate cells. None can look contemporary on a screen and unfinished on paper. If you choose none, print once before you decide the look is real.
Weight should be heavy enough to see and light enough not to shout over the words. A very heavy border plus a dark header plus a dark stripe is a lot of ink. Reduce one of them. Color of the border is usually a neutral dark or a mid gray. A border in the same hue as the text, slightly softer, disappears into the letters less often than a pure black rule on a small size. Bright border colors compete with any highlight you later add to a cell.
Borders are a table-level choice, not a different pattern on every cell. If you need one row to look special, use fill or bold, not a private border style the product does not offer cell by cell. That limitation keeps the grid coherent. Embrace it.
Title, caption, and full width
The title is the name of the table, shown above it. The caption is the short note under it. A good title is a noun phrase a stranger can file: "Week of 6 April, Room 12" or "Plant sale prices, cash only." A good caption holds the fact that would be wasteful in every row: the currency, the time zone, the meaning of a blank, the name of the person who must approve a change. Do not repeat the headers in the caption. Do not hide a critical exception only in the caption if a scanner of the grid would miss it. Put "includes tax" in the caption if every price includes tax. Put "tax extra" in a cell if only one row differs.
Stretch to full width makes the table occupy the available measure. Turn it on for a schedule or a comparison that should feel like the page. Leave it off for a narrow contact list that would grow huge empty columns on a desktop monitor. Full width does not add columns. It changes how the existing columns use space. On a phone, full width and a twelve-column grid still means horizontal scrolling. Stretching is not a substitute for deleting unused fields.
Title and caption travel with the exports that draw the table as a page, and they are part of the document you are designing. If an export format is about raw values, remember that a later editor may care more about cells than about the sentence underneath. When both audiences exist, export twice: once for reading, once for data. That pair is described in the export section.
Templates as a starting document
The built-in templates are weekly schedule, checklist, pricing, contacts, inventory, gradebook, monthly budget, comparison, meeting agenda, invoice lines, habit tracker, research table, and blank. Choosing one replaces the current grid with that sample, including a header mode and sample colors such as a header fill. It is a starting document, not a theme you paint onto existing words. If the current draft matters, export it before you apply a template. Undo may restore it if you act immediately. Do not count on memory.
After a template loads, every control on this page still works. You will delete sample rows, rename headers, and change stripe settings. The templates guide tells you when each starter earns its place in a class, a shop, a lab, or a household. From the features point of view, the only mechanical warning is replacement. There is one working table in the browser, not a stack of named documents.
Paste, CSV import, and copy
Paste from a spreadsheet into the selected cell. The block fills outward from that cell, down and across. Select the destination's top-left cell first. If you start in the middle, you will overwrite the middle and run out of room at the edge. The grid will not grow past 40 rows or 12 columns. Extra pasted cells that do not fit are not a second hidden sheet. Check the tail of the data against the source if you were close to the limit.
Import a CSV file when the source is a file rather than a live clipboard. The words land in the grid. Formulas, colors, and comments from the original workbook do not become Tabley styles, because they are not in the CSV and, even from a live paste, the editor takes text. After import, set the header mode yourself. A file often includes its own header row. If you leave "top row" on, that first line becomes the header, which is usually what you want. If you had an extra title line above the headers in the file, delete that row here so the real field names occupy the header.
Copy as tab-separated text when you need the words on the clipboard without a file. Tabs are what spreadsheets expect when you paste back. Use this for a round trip: clean up labels in Tabley, copy, paste into a sheet that still holds your formulas elsewhere. Do not expect the tab-separated copy to carry fills and bold. It is text arranged in columns.
Export formats and print
PDF keeps the layout for a reader who should not reflow it. Use it for door signs, packets, and email attachments that must look like your page. PNG and JPEG are pictures. PNG is usually the better picture for text and flat colors. JPEG is convenient where a tool or a chat prefers it. Both are right when the destination cannot hold a real table. Both are wrong when the next person must edit a number, because a picture of a number is not a number.
CSV is plain values for another program to import. Excel (.xls) is the spreadsheet file for a person who will open a workbook and keep editing. Neither one is a promise that your stripe and header fill will become a formatted corporate theme. If the styling is the point, also send a PDF. If the values are the point, CSV or Excel is enough. HTML is a real table for a web page, which can be selected, copied, and resized by the browser. Markdown is a table for a notes file or a repository that already speaks Markdown. Print opens the path to paper and to any PDF route your browser offers in its print dialog.
If an export fails on a very large grid, use print as the fallback the product itself suggests when preparation fails, and consider whether the table should be smaller. Files are generated on the device. Nothing about export uploads the cells to Tabley. You can export several formats from the same draft. Name the downloaded files in a way you will recognize later, because the editor will not keep a library of past downloads for you.
Languages and the local draft
The interface languages are English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Norwegian, Arabic, and Japanese. Arabic uses a right-to-left layout. Changing language changes the controls and the help chrome. It does not translate the cells. Set it to the language of the person editing, and type the table in the language of the person reading.
The draft lives in local storage in this browser only. A note on the screen says the work is saved here and that nothing is uploaded. That save lets you close a tab and return on the same browser profile. It does not follow you to another device. Clearing site data removes it. One draft occupies that storage. A template or a large paste replaces cells in place. The durable copies are the files you exported. For the privacy consequences, including what a future advertising script could do, read the privacy page. For how to report a control that does not match this page, use the contact page.
A short practice run
Make a four-by-four grid and type a header row: Item, Owner, Status, Note. Set the header mode to top row. Set header fill dark and header text light. Type three body rows. Right-align nothing yet, because these are words. Turn on stripes with a faint stripe color. Bold one status that says Blocked. Set borders to solid. Add the title "Practice list" and a caption "Sample only, not a real roster." Export a PDF and a CSV. Open both. The PDF should look like the screen. The CSV should contain the words. Then undo until you are curious, or replace the draft with the blank template when you are done. That single pass touches more of the product than a week of changing swatches on an empty cell, and it gives you a personal standard for what "finished" looks like.