InDesign has long offered users the ability to save and apply some kinds of table formatting in the form of table styles and cell styles. However, most users are surprised and disappointed when they learn how limited these styles are. For example, one of the most obvious things you’d want to control with a style is the width of columns. Unfortunately, there’s no feature in InDesign for this. But as with many of InDesign’s shortcomings, there’s a script that can help. Written by Gerald Singelmann, the script is called Auto Column. You can read about it and download it from Github.
When you have your cursor in a table cell you can run the script. You’ll be presented with a dialog where you can set the exact width of each column, or set it to “Auto”.
After applying the set column values, the script will divide the remaining table width among the “Auto” columns.
Just the ability to quickly set all column widths this way is pretty nifty, but the script does something even better. It allows you to store the column width settings in the table style applied to the table you’re working with. After you’ve done that you can put your cursor in another table with the same style applied, re-run the script and choose Load From Style. Voila! All the column widths are the same as the table you saved them from.
Until the day comes when InDesign’s table styles include column widths, this script is a wonderful tool for anyone who has to work with a lot of tables in InDesign. Thank you, Gerald!
This article was last modified on December 15, 2021
This article was first published on November 21, 2020
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