Carnegie Mellon University

Tables: A Guide to Visual Design

Download PDF Handout: Designing Effective Tables

If you want to design an effective table, you have to deliberately choose the information you want to highlight. Highlighting information that supports the story you want to tell helps your readers understand how you’ve interpreted your argument.

This handout will help you:

  • Remove distracting design features
  • Align numerical data for easy comparison
  • Group data to tell your story
BACK TO ALPHABETICAL LIST BACK TO TOPIC SEARCH