Add and edit cell content

You can add content to a table in several ways. You can type new content directly into cells or copy and paste content into cells from somewhere else. You can always edit or clear a cell after you add content to it.

Note: If you can’t add content to a table, make sure it’s unlocked. Click the table, then choose Arrange > Unlock (from the Arrange menu at the top of your screen).

Add content to cells

See Format dates, currency, and other data types to learn how to set specific data formats for cells.

You can also add an object to a cell and insert a link in a cell.

Wrap text to fit in a cell

If a cell isn’t wide enough to display all the text in the cell, you can wrap the text so it appears on multiple lines in the cell.

Clear content from a range of cells

  1. Select one or more cells.

  2. Do one of the following:

    • Remove the content but preserve the cells’ data format, text style, and cell style: Press Delete.

    • Remove all data, formatting, and styling: Choose Edit > Clear All (from the Edit menu at the top of your screen).

Autofill cells

You can quickly fill cells, or a row or column, with the same formula, data, or a logical sequence of data—for example, a series of numbers, letters, or dates.

Do any of the following:

Autofilling doesn’t set up an ongoing relationship among cells in the group. After autofilling, you can change the cells independently of each other.

When you autofill cells, any formulas that refer to those cells are updated automatically to use the new value.

Add an object to a cell

You can paste objects—including images, lines, shapes, and text boxes—into table cells. You can also add text to a cell that already has an object.

  1. Select an object (image, line, shape, or text box) in your presentation (or in another document), then choose Edit > Cut or Edit > Copy (cut removes it from its original location).

  2. Click the cell where you want to add the object (it can be a cell that already has text).

  3. Choose Edit > Paste.

    By default, Keynote scales the object to fit in the cell. To change the object’s size, in the Format  sidebar, click the Cell tab, click the disclosure triangle next to Fill, then click the “Scale to Fit” pop-up menu and choose another option.

To remove an object from a cell, click the cell, then click the Cell tab at the top of the Format  sidebar. Click the disclosure triangle next to Fill, click the Image Fill pop-up menu, then choose No Fill.

The control for removing an object from the selected cell.

Show a cell’s row and column

You can temporarily highlight a cell’s row and column in blue as you move the pointer over a table. In a large table, this can help you identify column and row references for specific cells.

Copy or move cells

When you copy a cell, or move a cell’s data to a new location in the table, all of the cell’s properties are also copied, including its data format, fill, border, and comments.

  1. Select the cells you want to copy or move.

  2. Do one of the following:

    • Move the data: After selecting the cells, click and hold the selection until the cells appear to rise off the table, then drag them to another location in the table. Existing data is replaced by the new data.

    • Paste and overwrite existing content: Choose Edit > Copy (from the Edit menu at the top of your screen). Select the top-left cell where you want to paste the data (or select an area of the same dimensions as the cells you’re pasting), then choose Edit > Paste.

      If your data range contains formulas, but you want to paste only the results, choose Paste Formula Results.

    • Paste without overwriting: Choose Edit > Copy, select the destination cells, then choose Insert > Copied Rows or Insert > Copied Columns (from the Insert menu at the top of your screen). New rows or columns are added for the copied cells.

    • Paste a cell style: Choose Format > Copy Style (from the Format menu at the top of your screen), select the cells where you want to paste the style, then choose Format > Paste Style.

    • Paste cell contents without the style: Choose Edit > Copy, select the cells where you want to paste, then choose Edit > Paste and Match Style. The pasted cells adopt the formatting of the new location.

    • Paste outside of an existing table to create a new table: Select the cells, then drag them where you want them. A new table is created with the pasted cells.

If you copy a range of cells that include hidden data (either hidden or filtered), the hidden data is also copied. If you paste to a range of cells with a matching arrangement of hidden cells, the hidden data is also pasted. Otherwise, the hidden content isn’t pasted.

See alsoFormat dates, currency, and other data typesResize rows and columnsAdd links to text and objectsMerge or unmerge cells