How to Add a Table in Google Docs

Open Insert > Table in Google Docs, then drag across the grid that appears to pick how many columns and rows you want; click to drop the table in at your cursor. From there, right-click any cell to insert or delete rows and columns, and right-click again to open Table options for borders, shading, and alignment.

Insert a table by dragging the grid#

The Insert menu is the fastest route, and you don’t need to get the size exactly right on the first try since rows and columns are easy to add or remove afterward.

Step	What to do
1	Click in the document where the table should start.
2	Go to Insert > Table in the top menu.
3	Drag across the grid to the number of columns and rows you need, then click. The grid tops out at 20 x 20 cells.
4	Type into any cell. Press Tab to jump to the next cell, or Shift+Tab to go back.

If you land on the last cell of the last row and press Tab, Google Docs adds a new row automatically, which is often quicker than using the menu.

Add or delete rows and columns#

Right-click inside any cell to bring up the table context menu. The options adjust relative to the cell you clicked, so right-clicking in the second column and choosing Insert column left adds the new column before it, not at the edge of the table.

Right-click option	What it does
Insert row above / Insert row below	Adds one row next to the cell you clicked
Insert column left / Insert column right	Adds one column next to the cell you clicked
Delete row / Delete column	Removes just that row or column, including its contents
Delete table	Removes the whole table

Deleting is permanent once you save, so double-check you have the right row or column selected before confirming, especially in a table someone else is also editing.

Format the table with Table options#

Right-click anywhere in the table and choose Table options (also available under Format > Table > Table options) to open a formatting sidebar rather than a pop-up dialog, so you can watch each change apply to the table in real time. The sidebar is organized into labeled sections for the specific column, row, and cell you selected, plus color and alignment controls for the table.

The Column section sets the selected column’s width, and the Row section sets row height along with the two options that matter most for long tables: pin one or more header rows so they repeat at the top of every printed page, and allow a tall row to overflow across a page break instead of being pushed whole onto the next page. The Cell section covers vertical alignment and cell padding, while the color controls handle cell background and the border color, width, and dash style, and a separate setting controls the whole table’s alignment on the page.

Resize columns and keep the table clean#

You can skip the sidebar for quick sizing: hover over a column border until the cursor changes to a double arrow, then drag left or right; do the same on a row’s bottom edge to change its height. For a long table, pinning the header row keeps column labels visible without retyping them, which matters if you’re building something like a comparison chart or a data reference the same way you might in a pivot table in Excel.

Google Docs and Word share a lot of the same table habits. If the same document needs a running title on every printed page, see how to add a header in Word, and if a wide table is spilling past the print area, adjusting the page setup works much the same way — see how to change margins in Word.

Build the table with a rough size first, fill in the content, then clean up columns and borders last. Resizing before the text is in place usually means resizing again once real content changes how much room each column actually needs.