Skip navigation
Pebblesculpt
Currently Being Moderated

Transparent table borders

Apr 20, 2012 2:38 PM

Tags: #transparent #background #border #table #gap

Hi.

 

I'm working in InDesign with a House Style that uses a particular table layout: tinted solid colour cells with paper coloured borders of 1mm. Some cells are also paper coloured which works well to break up the table making the layout less 'heavy' and 'blocky'.

 

Setting the table borders to white (paper) works fine most of the time but came the occasion last month when I would have liked to put a background picture on the page behind the table. I had to abandon the picture in the end.

 

So what I need is a way to make the cell borders transparent but retain the 1mm transparent gap between every cell, some of which are also transparent and most have a solid fill.

 

Any ideas?

 

Thanks.

 
Replies
  • Currently Being Moderated
    Apr 20, 2012 4:16 PM   in reply to Pebblesculpt

    Rather making the cell border color "paper" you can choose "NONE" , which is gonna work like transparent with the same weight 1mm.

     
    |
    Mark as:
  • Currently Being Moderated
    Apr 21, 2012 3:31 AM   in reply to Manish-Sharma

    Manish_1988 wrote:

     

    Rather making the cell border color "paper" you can choose "NONE" , which is gonna work like transparent with the same weight 1mm.

    Does that work for you? When I select [None] for color the stroke always disappears and leaves the cell fill color showing.

     

    To accomplish the transparent grid lines I think you'll need to add alternating rows and columns of the appropriate width/height and fill those cells with [None].

     
    |
    Mark as:
  • Currently Being Moderated
    Apr 21, 2012 3:55 AM   in reply to Peter Spier

    yes, you are right Peter but in OP

     

     

                  "  So what I need is a way to make the cell borders transparent but retain the 1mm transparent gap between every cell, some of which are also transparent and most have a solid fill."

     

     

    some cells are  transparent  and most have a solid fill...hence all cells are not transparent....also he has asked for the make the cell borders transparent which have the 1mm weight.,

     

    changing the cell border color to NONE will make it transparent and will give the 1mm gap in the cells , also it will allow to see the picture behind the table (only the part which is not blocked by table) .

     
    |
    Mark as:
  • Currently Being Moderated
    Apr 21, 2012 4:17 AM   in reply to Manish-Sharma

    Manish_1988 wrote:

    ....also he has asked for the make the cell borders transparent which have the 1mm weight.,

     

    changing the cell border color to NONE will make it transparent and will give the 1mm gap in the cells , also it will allow to see the picture behind the table (only the part which is not blocked by table) .

    This is the part that does not work in my testing. Changing the cell border color to none removes the gap when I try it.

     
    |
    Mark as:
  • Currently Being Moderated
    Apr 21, 2012 4:52 AM   in reply to Peter Spier

    Are you applying the dashed stoke on the cell border , to create the Gap in the stroke itself and then changing the color of cell border to NONE?

     

     

    If yes , why to do so because in OP he has asked to " retain the 1mm transparent gap between every cell "

     

    May I know your workflow ,,?

     
    |
    Mark as:
  • Currently Being Moderated
    Apr 21, 2012 4:55 AM   in reply to Manish-Sharma

    May be I misunderstood the OP ,but can you check which gap is the person talking about.....

     

    Is it "between the cells" or the "gap in the cell border stroke" ?

     
    |
    Mark as:
  • Currently Being Moderated
    Apr 21, 2012 5:11 AM   in reply to Manish-Sharma

    Where do you see any mention of a dashed stroke style? My interpretation is there is a solid border around the cells leaving a "gap" or "cell spacing" of 1 mm. Currently the stoke is [Paper], some cells have a tinted fill, and some a paper fill, so it might look something like this:

    Untitled-1.png

    And the goal is to have all the parts that are currently [Paper] changed to allow the blue background (in my example) to show through. Not a problem for the cell fill -- changing that to [None] works, but ther is no way that I've found to have a solid transparent 1 mm gap between cells in place of that white gap without adding rows and columns and filling them with [None].

     

    If you know a way to make those solid white lines transparent, I know a lot of users would love to hear it.

     
    |
    Mark as:
  • Currently Being Moderated
    Apr 21, 2012 11:13 AM   in reply to Peter Spier

    You are right.as always....When I intially did I was successful but now I am not able to do it ...may be first time I missed something and jump to the conclusion ......sorry for the mess.

     

    LESSON LEARNED thanks a ton PETER....

     
    |
    Mark as:
  • Currently Being Moderated
    Apr 21, 2012 12:47 PM   in reply to Manish-Sharma

    I was really hoping you had a new method. The adding rows/columns technique is a real pain.

     
    |
    Mark as:
  • Currently Being Moderated
    Apr 22, 2012 6:02 AM   in reply to Peter Spier

    I have 2 but I think it would be least bit helpful here because table is aleady been created but lets see...

     

    Method one:-

     

     

    Make the Rectangle and then use the script "Make Grid" , put the gutter space as 1mm , and rows and cloums equal to what is required in the table.

     

    Copy and paste the content from the table to the text boxes created from the script.

     

    Method two(will work if solid fill is done in few cells only):-

     

    Select the complete table , under "cell options" change the "cell fill" to "None"

     

    complete table shall be selected , under "cell options" , apply the stroke type "thin-thin" with "6 pt" with the "gap color" :- NONE and stroke color "Black"

     

    also change the "cell inset" to "0 mm"

     

    now de-select the table ,

     

    select any one cell on which you want to apply the solid fill and follow the below step:-

       a) Table-->Insert table , row 1 and column 1

       b) re-size embedded table according to the cell size

       c) Fill the color in the embedded table in the cell

     

    After this copy and paste this in all cell in which you want the solid fill.

     

    again in this text will be the problem when copying and pasting the embedded table.

     

    Hint:- steps taken from Indesignsecrets.com

     

     

    ====================================================================== =====================

     
    |
    Mark as:
  • Currently Being Moderated
    Apr 23, 2012 1:48 AM   in reply to Manish-Sharma

    See also the following thread in the Swizz/German forum hilfdirselbst.ch. Especially look for the attached IDML files by Kurt Gold and the script by Martin Fischer:

     

    http://www.hilfdirselbst.ch/foren/Transparente_Konturlinien_von_Tabell enzellen_P492751.html#492751

     

    Uwe

     

    P.S. Forget about my attached IDML file. This was a cheap trick with a flaw…

     
    |
    Mark as:

More Like This

  • Retrieving data ...

Bookmarked By (0)

Answers + Points = Status

  • 10 points awarded for Correct Answers
  • 5 points awarded for Helpful Answers
  • 10,000+ points
  • 1,001-10,000 points
  • 501-1,000 points
  • 5-500 points