What is an Excel Table?
An Excel table is nothing more than a set of rows and columns divided into cells. In a sense a table is practically just another type of worksheet. In reality a table is just one of many object users can insert into an Excel worksheet. A table serves so many more purposes than a worksheet can or is intended to.
Difference between Tables and Worksheets
A worksheet using thousands and thousands of rows and columns, sometimes even a million. However, tables are more designed to use smaller amounts of rows and columns to consolidate related information for the purpose of sorting and filtering. Tables also allow the use of connections to external resources, whereas worksheets without the use of tables do not.
Formatting Tables
Tables can use most of the same formatting options available to worksheets; however tables provide Excel users a toolbar for the purpose not only formatting tables, it also gives users the ability to. Import and Export data from external resources, view and utilize more tools available to Excel tables, and even sort and filter to organize the values within the table in terms of the current demand.
Editing Values within Tables
One of the greatest features of tables is their ability to allow you to still edit their values or formulas the same way you would have if you had not even created the table, but yet the same tables still allow additional customization. You can even add, edit or delete any value within any table with ease.
Importing a Table from an External Resource
Importing a table from external resources can be done in many ways. The simplest way is to use the copy and paste method, where you just copy the data from the external resource and paste into your worksheet. There are a few different problems with this method. One of the biggest problems associated with the copy and paste method is that Excel does not understand that you want to create a table automatically. This means after you copy and paste the information onto your worksheet you then have to the data into a table within the worksheet.
Exporting a Table to an External Resource
Exporting tables within Excel can be as simple as use the same copy and paste method that can be used to import data or as complex as exporting to specific applications through the use of multiple interface and menus. The copy and paste method is practically the same as if you were importing data except you would use the copy portion to copy the data from your Excel table and the paste portion to export the data into the external resource. Using the other various exporting menus and interfaces allow a lot more customization, but require a lot more knowledge of specific formats and external resource structures.