Formatting an ASCII Table with Spaces

It is not uncommon in many word processors to format tables with spaces. Enough spaces are inserted between each column to align the first letter of each column. Word, however, includes a table editor, which provides more flexibility in formatting and working with tables. Converting ASCII tables originally formatted with spaces to Word tables can be time consuming. The following VBA macro will do the formatting automatically. It assumes that each line represents a different row in the table, and that anything beyond a single space represents a division between columns.

Sub SpacesToTable
    With Selection.Find
        .ClearFormatting
        .Replacement.ClearFormatting
        .Text = " {2,}"
        .Replacement.Text = "^t"
        .Forward = True
        .Wrap = wdFindStop
        .Format = False
        .MatchCase = False
        .MatchWholeWord = False
        .MatchAllWordForms = False
        .MatchSoundsLike = False
        .MatchWildcards = True
    End With
    Selection.Find.Execute Replace:=wdReplaceAll
    Selection.ConvertToTable _
      Separator:=wdSeparateByTabs, _
      Format:=wdTableFormatNone
End Sub

Before running the macro, select the text you want to convert. When you run this macro, you will get the same thing you would get if you selected the option from the Table menu and then chose Text to Table. This means your columns might look funky; they will definitely need to be resized. But the hard work of getting rid of all the spaces has been done for you.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (781) applies to Microsoft Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. You can find a version of this tip for the ribbon interface of Word (Word 2007 and later) here: Formatting an ASCII Table with Spaces.