The Data Table Editor works much like a spreadsheet. You can move to the next cell of the table entry with the <Tab> or <Enter> keys. You can make any cell active by clicking into it with the mouse. To select multiple cells, you need to be in one of the outer-most cells and then click into the other outer-most cell while holding down the <Shift> key.

Data Table Editor.

The contents of any cell can be altered by simply clicking into it and entering the new value.

Data can be copied and pasted between a spreadsheet and the Data Table Editorr by selecting cells, rows, or columns and using the Copy or Paste commands from the Edit menu or by using the standard <Ctrl+C> and <Ctrl+V> key-strokes.

New Table Entries

New entries can be added at any row in the table. There are two ways to open a new row for entry: pressing <Enter> key at the end of the last entry, or make a new row below the current entry with the Insert Row command (Edit > Insert Row or <Ctrl+I>).

You can also Duplicate the current entry (Edit > Duplicate or <Ctrl+D>). The new entry will be entered into the table below the duplicated entry and you are then responsible for updating the new entry as appropriate to make it unique.

To insure that the data table will process all the information correctly, new entries should follow the same format as previous ones (such as the use of quotation marks). Data is saved to the table when you click Accept or use <Enter> at the end of a table entry. New or changed data that has not been saved to the table is shown in .

Finding Data

As data tables can become large, finding data can become awkward. By default, when a table is opened, the entries are sorted by the key column. For tables with multiple key columns, the data is sorted in the order of those columns. Once a table is open, you can sort the table by any column simply by clicking on the column’s header. The first click will sort the table by the descending order of the selected column and a second click will change the sort to ascending order.

Data Table Editor with the Find function on.

To find a cell containing a specific value, there is a find function in the Data Table Editor (Edit > Find or <Ctrl+F>). It opens the Find pane. In the text field, you enter the value to be searched for and then click Next (down arrow) or Previous (up arrow) buttons. If the value does not occur in the specified direction, a message will appear alerting you that the "search has reached the end of the table". The X button to the left of the Find field closes the Find pane.