Fitting Text Into Cells

You have worked long and hard on your page design, including a couple of tables that are just right. Then, along comes a need to add a bit more text into one of the tables. The result is that the text in a cell wraps and pushes everything else down a bit. Now your whole design is thrown off! You long for a way to automatically adjust the size of the text in a cell so you won't have the wrapping and pushing occur.

If you are using Word 2000, Word 2002, or Word 2003 there is a built-in option that may do the trick. Simply follow these steps:

1. Select the cell or cells that you want to format.
2. Choose Table Properties from the Table menu. The Table Properties dialog box is displayed.
3. If necessary, select the Cell tab. (Click here to see a related figure.)
4. Click on the Options button. Word displays the Cell Options dialog box. (Click here to see a related figure.)
5. Make sure the Fit Text check box is selected.
6. Click on OK to close the Cell Options dialog box.
7. Click on OK to close the Table Properties dialog box.

This same option is available in Word 2007 by following these steps:

1. Select the cell or cells that you want to format.
2. Make sure the Layout tab of the ribbon is displayed. (This tab is only visible if you first do step 1.)
3. Click the Properties tool in the Table group. Word displays the Table Properties dialog box.
4. Select the Cell tab.
5. Click on the Options button. Word displays the Cell Options dialog box.
6. Make sure the Fit Text check box is selected.
7. Click on OK to close the Cell Options dialog box.
8. Click on OK to close the Table Properties dialog box.

What Word does is to decrease the apparent size of the text so that everything fits. Word decreases the width of the text by "scrunching" (a highly technical term) the text together horizontally, without adjusting it vertically.

If you are using Word 97, there is no inherent way to accomplish the task. Word doesn't provide any properties you can check to determine the width of various characters, each of which could be different sizes and have other attributes. You can, however, create a macro that may help you by displaying the width of a text string in points or inches. For instance, the following VBA macro displays an input box so you can input your string, displays the Font dialog box so you can specify font and point size, and then displays the width of the resulting string.

Sub GetStringLength()
    Dim sngInitPos As Single
    Dim sngEndPos As Single
    Dim strText As String
    Dim sngLength As Single

    strText = InputBox("Enter the string whose length you want to determine")
    Documents.Add
    Dialogs(wdDialogFormatFont).Show

    sngInitPos = Selection.Information(wdHorizontalPositionRelativeToPage)
    Selection.InsertAfter strText
    Selection.EndOf
    sngEndPos = Selection.Information(wdHorizontalPositionRelativeToPage)
    sngLength = sngEndPos – sngInitPos

    MsgBox "Your string has a length of " & sngLength & _
        " points, or " & PointsToInches(sngLength) & " inches."
    ActiveDocument.Close savechanges:=False
End Sub

The only difficulty with this macro, of course, is that it isn't "automatic." For instance, it won't adjust the size of a text string to the maximum size possible to fit within a cell. In the long run it may be easier to just experiment with different font sizes for information in the cell until you find the right size for your needs.