Formatting and styling tables
How a table style is saved, who else it affects, and why editing one can change tables you are not looking at.
A table style is a saved set of formatting: header and row colors, borders, fonts, spacing and how each kind of cell is drawn. Data tables, custom tables and plan tables all use styles, and you edit them on the Style tab of the table's builder.
A table template names the style its tables use. A table built from the template reads that style, so changing the style changes how the table looks.
Two kinds of style
| Library style | Private style | |
|---|---|---|
| Where it comes from | You save it with Save As New | Insaplan creates it for one template or table |
| Who can use it | Everyone in your organization, from the style picker | Only the template or table it belongs to |
| Who is affected by an edit | Every table, template and plan view that uses it | Only the template or table it belongs to |
A built-in style cannot be edited. Save a copy first, then change the copy.
Styles save themselves
There is no Save button for a style. Insaplan saves your change a moment after you stop editing.
For a library style, this means the change reaches everything that uses it almost at once. The builder shows Used by N tables, templates and plan views under the style name, and tells you once, at your first edit, when more than one thing uses the style.
Editing a library style restyles every table that uses it. Use Save As New first if you want to change only this one.
Going back to the default style
Remove style, in the Style menu of a table template builder, drops the library style the template uses and puts the template back on your organization's default style. When the template next saves, it gets a style of its own, so later edits stay with that template and no library style is changed.
Editing a style on a table
When you change the style from inside a table rather than in the Builder, Insaplan makes a private copy for that table at your first edit. Other tables that used the original style are not affected.
Published templates
A published template version records which style it uses, not how that style looked at the time. Editing the style therefore changes tables built from every version of the template, old and new.
On a published template, you can still adjust the formatting of its style. You cannot switch the template to a different style, because that is a change to the template itself.
When a template update is applied to a data table, the table keeps its own style.
Two people editing the same style
If someone else saves a style while you are editing it, your next save is refused and a message appears. It says whether the other change came from you in another window, from the style's creator, or from another user.
- Refresh page discards your unsaved changes and shows the saved style.
- Overwrite saves your version over theirs. This cannot be undone.
The same message appears for a private style when someone else changed it. Your own changes from another window never raise it: the latest one wins.
Deleting a style
You cannot delete a style while anything uses it. Move those tables, templates and plan views to another style first.
What a style does not hold
The list of values that a label or colored-icon column offers belongs to the column, not to the style. A style decides what each value looks like, never which values a cell can hold.
Where to go next
- Data Tables, Custom Tables and Plan Tables (the plan template's Appearance tab) — open the Style tab
- Choosing a table type — decide which table to build