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What is a Table ?

Tables are made up of cells. A horizontal line of cells is called a “row” and a vertical line of cells is called a “column”.

You can use tables to set up side-by-side text paragraphs that wrap around independently or graphics such as charts that sit side-by-side.

Tables can be useful for creating newsletters, brochures, web pages and forms.

Tables play a crucial part in any Word document so it is important you can manipulate then quickly and avoid the time consuming mistakes.

A table offers an easy way to group paragraphs side by side and to arrange text beside charts or pictures

A table is just a collection of horizontal rows and vertical columns that are used to create a grid of individual cells.

Table cells can contain text, numbers, fields, graphics and many other elements.

Originally tables were used just to display numbers but now tables are suitable for a whole range of different tasks.

Table and Borders Toolbar

This can be quickly displayed by pressing the Tables and Borders button on the standard toolbar

Alternatively you can use (View > Toolbars > Tables and Borders).

 Tables and Borders - Toggles the display of the Table and Borders toolbar.

Using the Table Menu

Most of your commands can be accessed from the Tables drop-down.

Tables that span more than one page can easily have the same heading rows. Select the rows you would like to appear at the top of each page and press (Table > Headings)

You may find it easier to quickly draw your tables free hand using (Table > Draw Table). This may be quicker for drawing uniform tables to draw the outline

You can insert a tab within a table by pressing (Ctrl + Tab). Just pressing tab will move you to the next cell or create a new row

When you drag the edge of a column to adjust its width, the table width will not change, but other columns will reduce in width to compensate. To change the actual width of the table hold down Ctrl and Shift ??

If you want to see the exact measurements of rows and columns as you drag their borders hold down the Alt key as you drag

To quickly move a row, position the insertion point in the row and press (Shift + Alt) with either "Up Arrow" or "Down Arrow" to move the row up or down

Every cell contains an end-of-cell marker. To avoid copying the cell itself you must avoid copying this marker

If you alter the cell height in a particular cell all the cells in that row are effected

You can know control both the vertical and horizontal alignment at the same time from the shortcut menu when you right click a cell

Select text and press (Ctrl + Alt + "K") to remove any extraneous paragraph marks.

You can make the borders in your tables white so no lines or gridlines appear regardless of the individuals options

To add a double border to separate column headings from table entries, first apply single borders to all the sides, select the table choose (Format > Borders and Shading), and select the Grid under Setting. Select the first row of the table and change the line style of the border below the row

You can apply borders to paragraphs and graphics within a table cell in addition to the borders applied to the actual cells

If you want to apply the same border to a group of paragraphs, all the paragraphs must have the same indents, otherwise they are placed in separate boxes.

You can easily convert text to a table by using selecting (Table > Convert > Text to table) and then selecting a seperator character.

You can link an Excel table into your document by copying the table to the clipboard and selecting (Edit > Paste Special) and choosing "Paste as Link".

Showing Gridlines

Gridlines are similar to table borders except that they are only visible on the screen and will not be printed.

(Table > Hide Gridlines)

(Table > Show Gridlines)

This is a toggle

Things to Remember

To repeat your heading rows when a table spans more than one page highlight the heading rows and press (Tools > Headings)