Sketch Tutorials

Hacking Tables in Sketch App

Building a classic table using component-based design and symbol overrides

This is part of Frames for Sketch — Tutorial article that will help you to build smart and responsive tables, using single components from our toolkit which was recently added in the latest version of our handy Web Design System.

Hi, we are here to add some Tables to the list of things that give us pain in the lower back. It might get pretty messy when you try to build a table using lines or shape groups, making so you need to be super aware of where are you clicking to grab that exact layer, it might turn into that part of the day when you are constantly fighting your software using only sticks and stones.

But what you need to do is to stay calm and see how some Sketch features can make this process more humane and also make tables more flexible for us to work with. 😉

Here you can find Sketch file that contains a classic office spreadsheet, you can use it as a template next time you design a table, file contains additional symbols that may come in handy feel free to give this file a try.

👉 Download Table Template for Sketch

Building a Master Cell

Tables mostly consist of multiple cells which form logical groups for your data and numbers. The Cell is a building block of any table, this block serves to store data, and data can be displayed as text or icon-based information. You can think of these blocks as atoms, and rows or columns as molecules in the atomic design methodology. 📚

Now let’s proceed and start designing.

Don’t forget to Download the Sketch file that will help you with the following tutorial steps:

1. Start by creating a symbol container and set its height and width properties. Define indents from the left and the right sides of the container by adding a text layer into it.

It’s recommended to use 8pt or 10pt as indent for your text input depending on what grid you prefer the most.

2. Convert the text layer into a symbol and duplicate it into multiple colors and text alignment options for your cell. Make sure all the text symbols have the same size; this will grant your ability to change your text style from the override menu quickly.

Tip: When duplicating symbols, try to form visual groups that can stay separate from other symbols.

When adding additional styles such as Regular, Bold, or Italic be sure to put the right suffix name to the symbol naming structure so you can form text style groups, like this one. 👇

For example: Text / Italic / Center / Black

3. Fit the default text symbol inside a Cell container and set resizing properties to stretch, pin the text area to the Left and the Right edge.

4. Now add a background and a border to the container, use a Color symbol as Fill attribute for your cell background, and put it together with a border shape into another symbol to form a State attribute.

Container and Fill attribute merged to form a State.

State symbol will be used as the parent container for Color symbol, and the border properties will be used to draw a rectangle and form a table grid if you need to add another border/grid style duplicate the State symbol and adjust border layer properties to create a new cell look.

You can experiment a with border settings a lot (just as i did 🙃), and use different border positions and styles to control the visuals of your cell and the whole table as well. The border style that worked for me the best is —
0.5 Border, position: center.

5. Now, grab some icons and put them inside the cell component, convert each icon to a symbol with a Color attribute in it, then place your default icon (★) into the Cell, set one icon to the Left, Right, and Center.

Resizing: Fix width and height of each icon, leave the middle/center icon with no additional options, and set the left icon to pin to the left edge and the right icon to the right side.

Tip: Put text symbol on the top of the folder, so it stays the first item in the override menu.

6. Additionally, you can add checkboxes or radio buttons to the symbol page, with the same size as icons symbols to quickly swap between icons and forms when using a cell.

Tip: Checkboxes and radios can have different states as well — Normal, Hover, Selected, etc.

7. Now you can play with Cell component and see how many visual combinations you can achieve by using these ingredients we have just put into a single container.

Building a Classic Spreadsheet

Since we have our master symbol ready, we will create a classic MS Office looking table using our Cell component. Using only one element at the time will bless us with the ability to make super fast changes to different parts of the table (rows, columns) or the whole table as well. 🏃

We will be using The Duplicator plugin on this stage so be sure to download and install it.

1. Start by making a table header and define the needed number of columns. Adjust Cell component to have a desired header look, go to Duplicator settings, and set offset to 0. Use the shortcut ⌘⌃→ to make a row of headers quickly. (Feel free to use any direction you like.)

2. Duplicate the header row, and using override menu transform the row into a plain cell’s row — make a group and call it Row. Select the group and apply the Duplicator shortcut ⌘⌃↓ to build the needed amount of rows quickly.

3. Make left sidebar from first cells of the rows and group it. Place a Cell to the left top of the table to make a separate corner group. Copy and paste this ◢ glyph into the corner text input to create a selector. This how your table should look by now. 👇

4. Now, we only need to set the proper stretch/drag options to our table. Choose the table part and set resizing options to each of the group.

Set resizing options only for the groups. All Cells symbols should have no additional resize options.

5. And… it’s done, now you can freely resize the table and put some data into it, feel free to make group changes by selecting an area of the table while holding the ⌘ key.

Summary

Using a single component can be very rewarding when it comes to constant changes for your data. But we still need a proper way to quickly populate override menu inputs with real data, if you know a good way on how to do it feel free to leave a comment.

Frames toolkit contains much more components and techniques like this one, that will help you to master Sketch tools and produce better results at less time. Frames for Sketch is project driven by the will to design consciously using Sketch full potential, so be sure to get your license and stay up to date with new articles and helpful freebies. 🙌

Frames for Sketch — Web Design System

Before you leave

• Download Table Template — Gumroad link, Dropbox link.
• Start using Frames Design System for a super fast and consistent design.
• Follow for more UX/UI related stuff on Twitter and Dribbble.
• Check out some of my other articles:

Setting Up a Design System

Text System Mastery with Shared Styles