30.13.4 Commands for Table Cells

The commands table-forward-cell and table-backward-cell move point from the current cell to an adjacent cell forward and backward respectively. The order of the cell is wrapped. When point is positioned in the last cell of a table, typing M-x table-forward-cell moves point to the first cell in the table. Likewise M-x table-backward-cell from the first cell in a table moves point to the last cell in the table.

The command table-span-cell spans the current cell into one of the four directions—right, left, above or below—and merges the current cell with the adjacent cell. It does not allow directions to which spanning does not produce a legitimate cell.

The command table-split-cell splits the current cell vertically or horizontally. This command is a wrapper to the direction specific commands table-split-cell-vertically and table-split-cell-horizontally.

The command table-split-cell-vertically splits the current cell vertically and creates a pair of cells above and below where point is located. The content in the original cell is split as well.

The command table-split-cell-horizontally splits the current cell horizontally and creates a pair of cells right and left of where point is located. If the subject cell to split is not empty the user is asked how to handle the cell contents. The three options are: split, left, or right. split splits the contents at point literally while the left and right options move the entire contents into the left or right cell respectively.

The next four commands enlarge or shrink a cell. These commands accept numeric arguments (see Arguments) to specify how many columns or rows to enlarge or shrink a particular table.

M-x table-heighten-cell

Enlarge the current cell vertically.

M-x table-shorten-cell

Shrink the current cell vertically.

M-x table-widen-cell

Enlarge the current cell horizontally.

M-x table-narrow-cell

Shrink the current cell horizontally.