Tables: how to make all cell frames black?

Scrivener Scrivener for macOS
1

When I create a table, if I add columns they are all grey. How do I change all cell frames to black outlines?

2

Anyone?

Has this still not been fixed?

3

I’m going to put this as gently as I can, but… the MacOS Textkit tables, which Scrivener uses, are perhaps the Textkit’s weakest feature. Scrivener has never found a way to improve them. This sort of thing happens all the time to me, if I bother trying to create a table in Scrivener.

Instead, I use LibreOffice’s spreadsheet, and copy-and-paste a nicely formatted table into Scrivener. You can even add the spreadsheet to Scrivener (in the Research section), launch it from there if you need to edit it, then paste the edited table back in over the old table in Scrivener.

A final (very important) tip: be sure to leave a blank line after the table in Scrivener, or you may be stuck not being able to keep typing after without messing up the table (you may already know this, but for anyone else reading this thread…)

Hope this helps!

4

I just crashed into the last point. Oh well.

I had not heard of Textkits, but I get the idea. I was using Google docs for tables and many other aspects of prepping projects, but the lack of security finally made me ditch it. So it would be nice if Scrivener could give me tables. For now I’ll have to live with the grey thing. First world problems!

5

The Textkit is a part of MacOS, intended for developers to use so they don’t have to reinvent the wheel (word processing.) Most users are quite unaware of it. To see it in its most pure form, open Apple’s TextEdit app, which should be on your Mac. If you find a bug in Scrivener, one of the first things Tech Support will ask you is whether it shows up in TextEdit as well, in which case it’s Apple’s bug… Lit&Lat will report the bug to Apple, but don’t hold your breath for a fix from Apple. If the bug really stops Scrivener users cold, Lit&Lat will code a workaround if they can—but they can’t always.

Scrivener’s editing is based on Textkit, with lots of workarounds and extensions, but still based onTextkit. If there’s a problem in Textkit, then Scrivener has a problem. We all wait breathlessly for each major MacOS update to find out what will break in Scrivener because Apple broke it in Textkit… :wink:

LibreOffice is a free, open-source MS Office clone. I use it mostly for what spreadsheets (tables) I need. Since it’s an app that you download, not a web service like Google SHeets, there’s no security issue. Possibly you could use Apple’s Numbers for the same purpose if you prefer.