Working with tables
General features relevant to many table types are described in this section. For functionality associated with specific table types, please refer to the manual section describing that particular data type.
Key functionality available for tables includes:
- Sorting A table can be sorted by clicking the header of a column. The first click sorts the rows in ascending order, the second click reverses it to descending order, and the third click restores the original order.
Pressing Ctrl (
on Mac) while clicking other columns refines the existing sorting with the values of the additional columns, in the order they were clicked.
- Configuring the view This includes specifying which columns should be visible and defining the column order (see Table view settings and column ordering).
View settings can be saved for later use, with a specific table or for any similar table (see Side Panel view settings).
- Selecting rows Rows can be selected in multiple ways:
- Manually: hold down Ctrl (
on Mac) and click the desired rows. To select a range, hold Shift and click the first and last rows.
- Configure a table filter, click the Selection... button and choose Select Matches.
- Use the Select in other views option available in some tables, generally those with an associated graphical view.
The selection can be inverted using Invert Selection under the Selection... button.
- Manually: hold down Ctrl (
- Displaying only the selected rows To update the view to show only the selected rows, click the Selection... button above the table, and choose Filter to Selection.
To display the full table again, click the Show all button or choose Clear Filter to Selection under the Selection... button.
- Creating a new table from the selected rows Clicking the Create New Table button at the bottom of a table element creates a new table containing only the selected rows. Similar buttons are available in the table view of other element types, for example for sequence lists.
- Filtering rows Tables can be interactively filtered using simple or complex search criteria such that only rows containing content of interest are shown.
Scroll bars appear at the bottom and at the right of a table when table contents exceed the size of the viewing area.
Table-specific right-click menu options
Right-clicking within a table reveals standard right-click menu options, as well as the following table-specific options:
- Table filters See advanced filtering.
- File | Export Displayed Table Export the table to CSV, TSV, HTML or Excel format. Filtering, sorting, column selection, and column order are respected when exporting the table this way.
- Edit | Copy Cell Right-click on a cell and choose this option to copy the contents of that cell to the clipboard.
Subsections