Spacing Table Rows Vertically

When you are working with tables, you may wonder how you can easily add space before a table row. This can be important when you have the table formatted with borders, and the text in the table is too close to the border at the top of the row. Word makes it easy to add space after the information in a row, simply by adjusting the height of the row itself so it is greater than the space occupied by the information in the row. But what about before a row?

An easy way to solve this problem is with paragraph formatting. If you have a single paragraph in each cell of a row, simply select the row. You can then follow these steps:

1. Choose Paragraph from the Format menu. Word displays the Paragraph dialog box. (Click here to see a related figure.)
2. Adjust the Before setting so it represents the amount of space you want between the text and the row border. (A good setting is either 3 or 6 pt.)
3. Click on OK.

The above steps won't work if you are using Word 2007. In that case, you should follow these steps instead:

1. Display the Home tab of the ribbon.
2. Click the Paragraph icon at the bottom-right of the Paragraph group. (The icon looks like a small arrow that points down and to the right.). Word displays the Paragraph dialog box.
3. Adjust the Before setting so it represents the amount of space you want between the text and the row border. (A good setting is either 3 or 6 pt.)
4. Click on OK.

You can also use this method if you have multiple paragraphs in each cell. The difference, however, is that you should select the top paragraph in each cell and format just it, instead of formatting the paragraphs in the row as a whole.