Topic: Tables

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Adding a Line Before a Table Easily add a blank line before your already inserted table. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003

Adding Borders to Cell Contents Word allows you to quickly add borders to cells in a table, but you may not know that you can also add borders to the text within the cells. It all depends on a single setting in the Borders and Shading dialog box, as described here. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003 | 2007

Blank Lines before Tables Adding a blank line before your table is easy, but Word’s behavior as you attempt to make the insert can depend on where the table is located in the document. Here’s the skinny on how Word handles your attempts. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003 | 2007

Blank Page Printing after Table at End of Document When you print, do you get an extra blank page printed at the end of the document? It could be because of the final paragraph mark in the document being pushed to that blank page. This tip discusses ways you can get rid of that unwanted blank page. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003 | 2007

Cannot Set Heading Rows in a Table Word allows you to specify which rows in a table should be considered headings. What if setting the headings doesn’t work like you think it should? Here’s one thing to check. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003 | 2007

Centering a Table When you insert a table, it is positioned at the left margin of the page. You may want to center the table between margins. How you accomplish this depends on the version of Word you are using. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003

Changing Table Cell Text Direction When creating a table, you can turn the orientation of the text, within a cell, by ninety degrees in either direction from normal. It’s easy to do using either dialog boxes or toolbars, as described in this tip. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003 | 2007

Converting a Table Into Text Tables are great for some layouts, but for others you may need regular text. You can convert a table into text very quickly using the selections from the Table menu described in this tip. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003

Counting Values in Table Cells In Excel it is easy to count how many times a certain character occurs in a column of cells. In Word, it is a bit trickier. It could be done with a macro, but there is an even easier way, as described in this tip. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003 | 2007

Creating a Split Page Word users who are familiar with WordPerfect may miss the “split page” feature for a document. The closest comparable feature in Word is to use a table to create the desired side-by-side text. This tip walks you through the process of creating such a table. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003

Creating Tables with Specific Column Widths Create a table and Word figures out column widths by dividing the horizontal space by the number of columns you want in the table. You can use this feature to your advantage when creating tables by applying the simple technique described in this tip. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003

Deleting Cells You can modify the structure of a table by deleting cells. This tip shows just how easy it is to delete one (or more) cells from the middle of a table. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003 | 2007

Different Table Captions on Multiple Pages If you have a table that spans multiple pages, you may want to add a caption to the table and have that caption use different wording on the first page of the table. While Word doesn’t allow you to do this directly, the information in this tip provides a workaround that is easy to implement. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003 | 2007

Distributing Columns Evenly When you want the horizontal space in a table to be divided evenly among the columns in the table, you’ll love this tip. How you can accomplish this task is simple, but varies depending on the version of Word you are using. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003 | 2007

Distributing Table Rows Evenly If you’ve adjusted the height of your table and the rows within the table, you might want to later return all those rows to a uniform height. In Word this is referred to as “distributing” rows, and it is an easy task to do, as discussed in this tip. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003 | 2007

Erroneous Table Math Depending on the type of data you have in your table, the SUM(ABOVE) function might return incorrect results. Here’s an explanation of why this happens, along with several ways to work around the problem. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003 | 2007

Expanding Width of All Tables If you have a lot of tables in your documents, you might want to change the width of all of them. You can take forever doing it manually, or you can apply the simple macro in this tip to make quick work of the task. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003 | 2007

Finding a Cell Reference Want to know what the reference address is for a particular cell in a table? Word won’t tell you, but you can use a macro to figure it out. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003 | 2007

Fitting Text Into Cells Need a way to make sure your text fits within the space available in a table cell? Word has a handy setting that will adjust your text’s format, as necessary, to make it fit. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003 | 2007

Fitting Your Text In a Cell Got some text you absolutely must fit on a single line in a table cell? Then you’ll appreciate this rather esoteric setting that allows you to force text to fit on that line. Microsoft Word versions: 2000 | 2002 | 2003 | 2007

Footnotes for Tables Word includes a powerful feature that allows you to add footnotes and endnotes to your document. What if you want them at the bottom of a table, however? There are a couple of approaches you can try, as described in this tip. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003 | 2007

Formatting an ASCII Table with Spaces When you get a text file from a program other than Word, tabular information may be formatted with nothing but spaces in between columns. You can easily convert such information to Word’s native table structure by using the macro in this tip. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003 | 2007

Formatting an ASCII Table with Tabs If you get a document from a coworker that has tabs used to line up tabular information, you might want to change that type of formatting to a regular table. Word provides some capabilities to do this, but you may want to use the macro presented in this tip to make the conversion even easier. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003 | 2007

Formatting Currency If you need to format a number so that it appears as currency, it is not as easy to do in Word as it is in Excel. You can use the technique introduced in this tip (utilizing fields) to control exactly how you want that number displayed. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003 | 2007

Freezing a Table Tired of your table readjusting itself to fit whatever you put in it? Word allows you to “freeze” a table’s layout, but doing so is not that intuitive. This tip presents the steps you need to follow to stop your table from jumping around unexpectedly. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003

Hiding Gridlines For those times when you remove the borders from your tables, Word provides a way that you can display non-printing gridlines. These help you to see the structure of your table. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003 | 2007

Hiding Table Gridlines, by Default Gridlines allow you to see the boundaries of a table, even if you have table borders turned off. Word allows you to specify whether you want the gridlines turned on or off, by default. This tip explains how that works, in addition to how gridlines relate to borders. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003

Index Number for the Active Table For some programming needs, it is important to determine the index of an object within a collection of such objects. This tip discusses ways you can determine the index number of a table within the Tables collection. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003 | 2007

Inserting Cells in a Table You can enlarge a table by adding cells where they are needed. Just pick where you want the cells inserted, then use the commands described in this tip. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003 | 2007

Jumping to Tables If your document contains quite a few tables, you may find it helpful to jump quickly from one table to another. There are two ways you can do this: using Go To and the Object Browser. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003 | 2007

Jumping to the Ends of Table Columns How to get to the top or bottom of a table column. Microsoft Word versions: 6 | 95 | 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003

Jumping to the Ends of Table Rows How to get to either end of a table row. Microsoft Word versions: 6 | 95 | 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003

Keep Your Headings in View Headings on a table are very important when it comes to understanding what is in the table. This tip explains an easy way you can keep those headings in view when working with very long tables. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003 | 2007

Line Numbering and Tables Line numbers come in very handy for certain types of documents, such as legal or scientific documents. Word adds the lines to the left of any line of text, except lines of text that appear within other objects, such as text boxes or tables. This tip explains how you can work around this limitation when it comes to tables. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003

Moving a Table Column Want to move a column in a table very easily? You can do so by using the same editing techniques you are already using. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003 | 2007

Moving a Table Row Want to move a row in a table very easily? You can do so by using the same editing techniques you are already using. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003 | 2007

Noting Table Rows Containing a Character If you want to have Word highlight rows in a table that contain a certain character, you need to resort to using a macro. This tip shows how such a macro could work to give the desired results. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003 | 2007

Picking a Contiguous Range of Table Cells How to select a range of cells in a table. Microsoft Word versions: 6 | 95 | 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003

Quick Recall of Table Formats Got a table that you use over and over again? One way you can make quick work of such repetition is to save the table in an AutoText entry. This tip shows how easy this is. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003 | 2007

Quickly Inserting Table Rows Need to pop a few extra rows into a table? It is easy to do using the same tools you used to create the table in the first place. This tip explains how you can add the rows you need. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003 | 2007

Resizing Table Columns with the Mouse Once a table is inserted in your document, you can use the mouse to adjust the width of columns. The effect the mouse pointer has on column widths depends, primarily, on your use of keys such as Shift and Ctrl. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003 | 2007

Selecting a Table There are several different ways you can select an entire table in Word. The various methods and shortcuts are described in this tip. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003 | 2007

Selecting Individual Cells in a Table Many times before applying formatting or doing another operation, you need to select an individual cell in a table. Here’s the quickest ways to make the selection. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003 | 2007

Setting Up Multi-page Columns Do you want the text in your columns to go from page to page in the same column rather than from left to right on the same page? Although not the perfect solution for demanding layouts, the best way to accomplish this task is to use tables. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003

Spacing Table Rows Vertically Want to get just the right amount of spacing above and below text in a table cell? A very easy way to do this is to adjust the paragraph spacing, as you do when formatting normal text. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003 | 2007

Summing a Table Column Need to add a sum to a column of figures in a table? Word makes it relatively easy to provide the sum you need. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003 | 2007

Suppressing a Zero In a Calculated Sum You can use fields to sum values in a table column. If the summed amount is zero, you may want the sum suppressed. This tip discloses two ways you can get the desired result. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002

Table Borders Won't Print Understanding why table borders might not print. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003 | 2007

Table Header Rows after a Manual Page Break Insert a manual page break into the middle of a table, and you may find that subsequent pages of the table don’t always look like you expect. The reason is discussed in this tip, along with some solutions to get around the problem. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003 | 2007

Table Numbers are Skipped What do you do if you add numbered captions to an element of your document (such as tables) and Word skips a number? There are a couple of things you can check to discover where the problem lies, as discussed in this tip. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003

Using Outline Numbering in a Table You can use outline numbering in a table, the same as you would outside of a table. The only difference is the keystrokes you use to change different outline levels. This tip discusses these differences. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003

Validating Data You can use Excel to validate data entered in a worksheet. Similar validation is not available for Word tables, however. This tip discusses a couple of approaches to data validation in Word. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003

Viewing Formulas in Table Cells Word allows you to add formulas (using fields) to table cells. It is easy for these formulas to get quite long, and then they may not be visible within the cells, but instead appear cut off. This tip explains how you can make these formulas more visible. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003

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