An effective way of designing tables on Figma using components and autolayout
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I used to find designing tables time-consuming, especially when I needed to make adjustments or add new rows. Fortunately, I discovered an efficient way to design tables that not only saves time but also ensures consistent spacing and formatting. In this tutorial, I'll show you how I leveraged components and auto-layouts to streamline my table design process. I'll also share a tip for using a plugin to populate tables with random names, making it even easier to create professional-looking tables in no time.
I started by designing the first row of my table. This row served as a template for the rest of the rows, ensuring consistency across my table design.
Once I designed my first row, I selected all the elements within that row and turned them into a component. To do this, I right-clicked and chose "Create Component" or used the keyboard shortcut (Ctrl + Alt + K or Cmd + Opt + K).
By creating a component, I was able to quickly edit the first row and have those changes automatically applied to the other rows in my table.
With my first-row component created, I decided to duplicate it and arrange the rows using auto-layout. I selected the first-row component and created an auto-layout container by clicking the "Auto-Layout" button in the property panel or using the keyboard shortcut (Shift + A).
Now that my auto-layout container had been created, I easily duplicated the first-row component by pressing Ctrl + D or Cmd + D.
I continued duplicating the first-row component until I had the desired number of rows in my table. The auto-layout container ensured consistent spacing between each row.
When I needed to make changes to the rows in my table, I simply edited the first-row component. All the other rows automatically updated to reflect the changes I made, saving me the time and effort of editing each row individually.
Instead of manually changing the names in my table one by one, I used a plugin to populate the table with random names - Random Name Generator. To do this, I selected all the name cells in my table and ran the plugin. The plugin automatically filled the selected cells with random names, making it even easier to create a polished, professional-looking table.
By leveraging components and auto-layouts, I significantly streamlined my table design process, ensuring consistent spacing and formatting throughout my table. Furthermore, utilizing a plugin to populate my table with random names saved me additional time and effort.
Share this tutorial with fellow designers to help them create more efficient and professional-looking tables!