drawing cells. To draw cells within your table, follow these steps: 1. Select a table to draw a layout cell into. Now select the Draw Layout Cell icon from the Insert bar. Your cursor immediately changes to the crosshair when you mouse over the layout table. 2. Draw a cell in the first Header table that spans 640 pixels wide by 177 pixels high. The layout cell snaps to the guides. The result appears similar to Figure 6.40. Figure 6.40. Draw a layout cell that covers the Header table. [View full size image] 3. Draw a cell in the Content table that spans from the top left all the way over to the far right and down to the first guide set at 222 pixels. This cell will hold the subheader_about.gif image (see Figure 6.41). Figure 6.41. Draw a layout cell that covers the top third of the Content table. [View full size image] 4. Draw another cell that spans a square of about 100 pixels and that reaches the bottom of the Content table. This cell will eventually hold the employee's headshot image. The result resembles Figure 6.42. Figure 6.42. Draw a second layout cell in the Content table to hold the headshot image. [View full size image] 5. Draw a third cell to consume the final area of our Content table. This cell will hold the bio text for the employee. When you've finished, the result resembles Figure 6.43. Figure 6.43. Draw a third cell to hold the bio text. [View full size image] You'll begin to notice a few interesting aspects when drawing cells. First, the cells attempt to snap themselves to the border of the layout table when you're within 8 pixels of the border. Second, the cell can't be resized past the boundary of its containing table. Also, you'll notice that a cell is highlighted in white while areas not defined as cells are highlighted gray. (You may or may not see the gray areas. It ultimately depends on how you drew the cells within the table.) This gray area is part of the layout table and cannot have content added to it in Layout mode. In general, keep these points in mind when drawing cells within a layout table: Cells and nested tables automatically snap to existing cells when within 8 pixels of an existing cell or guide. A layout table cannot be resized so that it is smaller than the cells it contains. A layout cell cannot be resized beyond the borders of its containing table. No overlapping is allowed. A layout cell is always at least as large as the content it contains. After the cells have been added to the layout table, you can select them in an effort to modify their properties in the Properties Inspector. To select a cell in a layout table, simply select the border of the cell to which you want to make modifications. Notice that as you get close to the border of the cell, the cell highlights from the blue border to the red border. When this happens, you can select the cell. With the cell selected, the Properties Inspector changes to accommodate property modifications, as the callouts in Figure 6.44 show. Figure 6.44. The cell-based Properties Inspector supports various property modifications while in Layout mode. [View full size image]