Selecting Multiple Cells

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Tips and Tricks

Selecting and Editing Multiple Cells

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Dynamic Resizing

You can resize groups of cells dynamically. Here are three selected cells:

If you click on the lower right corner of any of the cells and drag the cursor, you can grow or shrink all of the cells. Here, the user has clicked and held the mouse button on the lower right corner of Cell Two:

By dragging the corner of this cell up and to the right, the user makes all three cells relatively wider and shorter:

Similarly, you can resize just cell heights dynamically by clicking and dragging near one cell's lower left corner, and you can change the width by dragging the upper right corner.

You can also resize multiple cells by using the "Decrease Size" and "Increase Size" buttons on the Toolbar (

).

Here are three selected cells:

Click on the

button a few times. You will see that all three cells have been enlarged, including their text contents. If any of these cells contained an image, the image would have been resized as well:

Similarly, you can use the

button to decrease the size of selected cells.

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Changing Cell Properties

You can change virtually any cell properties of cells in a multiple selection. After selecting two or more cells, select "Edit/Cells/Edit" from the main menu (or double-left-click just inside the border of any of the selected cells). You'll see the cell properties screen:

Note that some of the fields on this screen do not contain values. The "Left" and "Top" positions do not contain values, for example, because the three selected cells have different coordinates. The "Padding" value does show as 0, because all three cells have this value in common.

In general, when you work with multiple cells, only common properties will appear on this screen. If, however, you want to, you can set such blank properties. Let's set the height and width, for example to 100 for all three cells:

The cells will now all be the same size:

Similarly, you can change borders, backgrounds, text formats, positions, order, and any other properties of multiple selected cells.

You can copy and paste multiple selected cells or copy them to the Favorites Library.

You can move a group of selected cells by dragging them. Just click and hold the left mouse button near the border of any cell in a group of selected cells and drag them to where you want them to go:

WebBuild Express has several special features for working with multiple cells:

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Spacing Multiple Cells

You can make the space between cells the same, horizontally or vertically.

First, as we did with cell alignment and sizing, click on one of the selected cells to make it the "base cell". The other cells will be spaced equally around the base cell:

Next, choose "Edit", then "Cells", then "Spacing", and then "Equal Horizontal" from the main menu:

Note that the spacing between the cells is now equal. Cell Two, the "base cell" has not changed position. Cells One and Three have been shifted to the right so that the intervals between them and Cell Two is equal.

Using Cell Alignment, Sizing, and Spacing, you can easily and quickly develop pages with crisp alignment and appearance.

Sizing Multiple Cells

You can make two or more cells the same height, width, or both.

Just as with aligning cells, you need to click on one of the cells in your selection to be the "base cell":

Here the user has selected Cell Two as the "base cell" that will be used to determine the dimensions of the other cells.

Click on "Edit" on the main menu, then on "Cells", then on "Size" and then on "Same Height":

The cells will now have the same height:

Now, select "Edit/Cells/Size/Same Width":

The cells now all have the height and width as Cell Two did before the resizing.

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As your WebBuild Express pages get larger and more complex, you will often find it necessary to make changes that affect more than one cell. Most WebBuild Express functions can be performed on multiple cells that are selected in advance.

There are several ways of selecting groups of cells:

Method 1 (Selecting Cells in Succession): Click on a cell and then, holding the "Control" key, click on one or more additional cells. As you Control-Click each succeeding cell, it will show with a thin red border, and all previously-selected cells will have a thin gray border:

Here the user has selected Cell One and then Cell Two. Cell Three has not been selected.

(If you have several cells selected and want to de-select a cell, Control-click on it).

Method 2 (Drag-Select): Start in any part of the page that does not contain a cell. Click and hold the left mouse button and drag the cursor up, down, left, and/or right on the page. You'll see a shaded gray rectangle starting at the cursor's original location and changing as the cursor moves. Any cell that is partly or completely covered by this "drag-select" area will be selected when you release the mouse button.

Here the user has dragged up from an empty area under Cell One and to the right to create a "drag select" area that covers all three cells. When the mouse button is released, all three cells will be selected:

(When you have selected multiple cells using Drag-Select, you can unselect one or more cells by holding the "Control" key and clicking on them).

Method 3 (Select All): Make sure that the cursor is not within any cell on the page. (If it is, click on an empty, celless portion of the page). Click "Edit" on the main menu and then "Select All" or, holding the "Control" key, press "A". All cells will be selected.

If you want to select most of the cells on the page, you can use "Select All" and then deselect the ones you don't want selected by Control-clicking on them.

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Aligning Multiple Cells

When you have two or more cells selected, you can align them horizontally or vertically. Horizontally, you can align their left, center, or right borders. Vertically, you can align their tops, middles, or bottoms.

Here's an example:

Note that the middle cell has a red border. The cell with the red border in a multiple selection is the "base cell" and will determine what the other cells should be aligned to. In this example, let's align all cells to the top of Cell Three. First, click on it to select it as the "base cell":

(Note that when multiple cells are selected, you can click on any of the selected cells without using the multiple selection).

Now, click on "Edit" on the main menu, then on "Cells", then on "Align", and then on "Tops":

The tops of the three cells are now aligned with the top of Cell Three:

Similarly, you can align the vertical middles or bottoms of cells and their lefts, rights, and centers.

Aligning Multiple Cells

Sizing Multiple Cells

Spacing Multiple Cells

Dynamic Resizing