Dreamboat on Word: Word 2000, Word 2002, Word 2003 (On Office series)

Quick Facts About Tables

• Tables can often be used instead of column formatting. This is particularly true for layout of brochures, booklets and newsletters. Any layout that requires columns can often be accomplished using tables, which are much less of a headache than columns can be.

• Hitting Tab within a cell makes the cursor jump to the next cell.

• Hitting Ctrl+Tab creates the tab within the cell.

• To create a new row at the bottom of a table, put the cursor in the last existing cell and hit Tab.

• To create a new page of labels, put the cursor in the last label and hit Tab until the entire next page is filled with labels.

• Most label layouts are done with tables. If holding the tab key doesn’t work for that type of label, copy the entire page, hit Ctrl+End, then Ctrl+Enter and paste it onto the next page.

• Select a row, then click and drag it above any other row to move the whole row without deleting anything. Columns can be moved the same way.

• The little round symbol inside of each cell (with the Show/Hide button on) is the End-of-Cell marker.

• If you can’t see the End-of-Cell marker in your table, there is likely paragraph formatting that includes indentations outside the area of the table.

• To insert a new column to the right of the last column in Word 97, select the End-of-Cell markers to the far right of the table as you would select a column. Hit → Table Insert → Row.

• In Word 97, you must remove the Float Over Text option to position a graphic inside of a table cell.

• Gridlines are viewed and borders are printed. In Word 6.0, tables do NOT have borders by default. In Word 97, 2000 and 2002/XP they have borders by default.

• To test for proper formatting of a table, copy it and paste it into Excel. If Excel maintains the layout, the table is perfectly formatted. Merged cells and missing data reduces the likelihood of proper layout.

• By default in Word 6.0, 97 and 2000, a new document containing a table is used as the Data Source when using the Mail Merge Helper. Excel usually is the better option, however, because of its easier sorting capabilities and because a many-column data source may extend the document size in Word. Word 2002/XP uses Access as its default data source. See more on Mail Merge on page 17-1.