Tables - source image: FreeImages.com /Thanai Ch (c)Aug 2005

People generally don’t like change and if you have been using Word for forever and not Excel then creating a table in Excel would be excruciating, so I am going to show you how to create a simple table in Word. There are in effect three different ways to create a table and today I’m going to show one way.

You start with your cursor where you intend the table to be.

document example

From the Insert tab

Insert Tab

Select the table tool which resides towards the beginning of this ribbon.

Table Tool

From this tool a list will appear.

Insert Table box

Select the Insert Table…

A default setting will appear.

Table settings box

Overtype the items you need.

N.B., You do not have to know how many rows you need for this table at this time. As you fill your table with information the rows will grow automatically.

Once you have typed in the number of rows and columns you require and left the Fixed columd width to Auto, select the OK button.

Your table appears across your document using the full width of the page within your margins. Your flashing cursor will be in the first cell of your table that already has boarders on it.

document example with table

You can type as much as you like in each and every cell, the cells just adjusts height wise to accommodate the text.

You can format the text in any way you wish, format the cells to have different boarders and backgrounds.

You can change the size of each column or cell.

In my next article I shall show you how to create a table in a different way, you may or may not prefer this. I will also write a further article about text direction and formulas inside the cells. So watch out for those in the near future.

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