Transpose or rotate tables
'Transposing' a table swaps rows and columns in such a way that the first row becomes the first column.
'Rotating' a table has a similar effect to transposing, but it changes the order of the rows. Rotating combined with transposing has some useful applications.
See a full explanation below, along with some practical examples.
Method for transposing or rotating tables:
Drag to select the tables you want to transpose or rotate.
Choose from options provided. (These are illustrated below.)
Click OK.
Feature #1: Transposing tables
Transposing a table swaps the rows and columns so that the first row becomes the first column, the second row becomes the second column, etc.
Use 1: To make a table more readable:
Tables are usually easier to understand when organised vertically in columns rather than horizontally in rows.
Transposing will do the conversion easily. (See example below)
NOTE: Transposing the same table twice will restore the original table.
Use 2: To do things with table rows/columns that are easier to do with columns/rows
For example, it is easy to move table columns around in a Google Doc, but not table rows.
If you transpose a table, you change the rows into columns.
You can then easily move these columns, then transpose again to turn them back into rows. (See explanation below)
Used with other TableMate functions, you could:
Format table columns
Split tables vertically
Sort table columns
Example: Moving table columns:
We want to move the 4th row of this table up to second position, as shown:
(a) First we transpose the table:
(b) Then we move the 4th column (that WAS the 4th row):
(c) Then we transpose the table again:
Feature #2: Rotating tables
This feature rotates the table left or right by 90º.
This is similar to transposing, but the order of the rows and columns is different.
Use 1: To reverse the order of all table rows: (Two easy steps!)
We want to reverse the order of these table rows:
(a) Rotate the table to the right 90º:
(b) Transpose the table:
Use 2: To reverse the order of all table columns: (Two easy steps!)
(While we can move table columns manually by clicking and dragging, this is not easy for a very big table!)
We want to reverse the order of these table columns:
(a) Rotate the table to the left 90º:
(b) Transpose the table:
