Help > Authoring > Working with Tables > OASIS Exchange Tables > Handling Empty Table Cells
  
Handling Empty Table Cells
Arbortext Editor does not create pre-defined tables (Arbortext, HMTL, OASIS Exchange) containing table cells with no content. That is, Arbortext Editor only creates create table cells which contain <entry></entry> tag pairs. However, Arbortext Editor can edit tables with tables cells not containing <entry></entry> tag pairs created by other applications. When Arbortext Editor opens such tables with empty cells, it creates virtual entry elements inside the cells. By default, if you do not add content to these virtual entry elements, Arbortext Editor omits them when saving the document. Empty entry elements are saved in the following circumstances:
When you have added content to the empty cell.
When you have set an attribute in the entry element to a non-default value.
When the cell is to the left of a cell possessing a colname or namest attribute. In this case, the empty entry element is required to maintain the structure of the table.
When you have executed the ACL command set tablewriteemptycellmarkup=on to explicitly instruct Arbortext Editor to save the empty entry elements in the document.
Be aware of the following caveats related to how Arbortext Editor works with empty cells:
Cursor placement — If the cursor was placed inside an empty virtual entry element when the document was saved, Arbortext Editor may omit the entry element in the saved document and lose the cursor position. In these cases, Arbortext Editor will place the cursor at the beginning of the document the next time it is opened. The cursor will not, however, be moved in the document open for editing.
Context checking — Arbortext Editor does not check the context of empty table cells.
Required elements (tags) — If the entry element in your document type requires a certain tag for content, Arbortext Editor will include the tag when creating the virtual entry elements. Note that even though the entry elements now contains the required tag, it will still be considered a virtual entry element until the cell has user-generated content.
* 
If there is more than one row in the table, in custom tables the other rows display a cell with a gray “X”, indicating that no cell data actually exists at that location in the table. In the pre-defined table models, you will get an extra column or row when inserting a cell.