Presets For Table Row Colors

[Andacar]

I'm creating a table that functions as a time outline for a book. The rough format is as shown in the example.

What I need is a simple way to format the table row colors without having to hunt for the colors in the Shading tab. I know about Table Design, but it seems to want a header always on the first row, while this has different kinds of headers throughout the document. It's a shame MS can't simply add table styles to be part of all the existing styles, but that's a digression. Can asnyone help here? Do I need to explain more clearly?

Thanks!

[Guessed]

Applying a table style 'defaults' to applying a Header Row to the first row but you can turn that off in the first checkbox on the Table Design ribbon. As you already know, applying a paragraph style won't change the shading of the table cell that paragraph is sitting in.

However, I would recommend you didn't put that sort of content inside table cells. It will make life a whole lot more difficult. What added benefits do you think you get by putting all the text inside table cells?

You can apply background shading to paragraph styles and this will give you a similar look to the shading inside table cells. You can also apply a frame as part of a paragraph style if there was a limitation in the simple shading/border settings.

[Andacar]

Thanks for replying. It's in table cells because the content will change from one column to three and back. Normal Word columns won't work for this because this is a timeline that keeps track of several things in different places going on a the same time and they need to say horizontally aligned. Columns would just wrap around. And by "fame" do you mean a text box? Those have their own alignment problems, jumping around the page and having things wrap around them, especially if they are pushed to a different page.

[Charles Kenyon]

So, create or add a table each time you want the three columns.

You can easily set up the format you want and save it as a Quick Table.