While Google Docs is a great free alternative to Microsoft Word, a few of its features aren't user-friendly. Google is taking cognizance of some of these issues and rolling out updates to address them. For instance, the company recently added a new way to quickly insert images, names, links, and more in Google Docs. Now, it's adding another feature that makes customizing tables a whole lot simpler.

Google has added a few new ways to customize tables in Google Docs (via 9to5Google) that will make users who crunch a lot of data happy. If you often use tables on Google Docs, you will now be able to perform the following tasks, making working with tables a lot easier on the platform:

Pin a table header row to repeat on each page

Google Docs Table customization

When you add a table that you want to stretch across multiple pages, a header pinned to the top of the table indicating which column represents what can prove to be handy. With this new update, you will now be able to do just that at the beginning of every new page.

Designate that a row should not be split across pages

Docs table customization

If you've ever had an issue with the elements of a row being extended to the next page, you can prevent that from happening with this update. Docs will provide more control over formatting the contents inside a row.

Quickly add and arrange columns and rows

Rows and columns rearrange

If you have a table with multiple rows and columns that you need to reshuffle, you can now arrange them by just dragging and dropping them to a different location. You can interchange multiple rows and columns too by doing this.

Sorting tables to better organize data

Docs sorting customization

If you have a table consisting of values that need to be sorted in a particular fashion, you will now be able to do that with just a click. You can sort lists in either ascending or descending order which makes it easier to visualize data.

A new sidebar to manage table properties

Docs tables sidebar

Google has added a new sidebar in Docs that will open up every time you want to edit the properties of a table. This is similar to the image editing sidebar that is already a part of Google Docs. The changes you make in the sidebar will be reflected on the tables in real-time.


This new update to Google Docs will roll out in a phased manner starting from today, 7 December 2021. Google says that it may take up to or even more than 15 days for all users to receive the update. These new features will be available for all Google Workspace users as well as G Suite Basic and Business customers.