Depending on the type of document you are working with, tables may be a useful way for
you to present some information.
Right now, I'm working on the monthly sales report for the AdWorks Agency.
The report has a lot of information, and I think some of it is a little hard to read
in all text format.
In the Monthly Revenue section, I've already typed in this month's information.
But, now that I look at it, I think this would look better in a table.
To create a table using existing text, just select the text.
Then, select the Insert tab and click the Table command.
From the menu, select Convert Text to Table.
A dialog box appears.
Go down to the Separate text at: section and choose one of the options.
This is how Word knows what text to put in each column.
In the report, I used a semicolon to separate the information, so in the Other section,
I just need to enter a semicolon.
Then, I can check to make sure the number of columns is correct.
I need 4 columns in this table.
And then click OK.
Now the text appears in a table and if you look at the ribbon we have a Design tab as
part of our Table Tools.
It looks OK, but I think I'd like to add a row with titles for each column.
Since I want to add a new top row, all I need to do is place my cursor in the current top
row.
And right- click the mouse.
A menu appears and I need to select Insert and then Insert Rows Above.
A new row appears above the row where my cursor was.
Now I can enter my information.
You can also add columns if you need to.
Just place your cursor next to where you want the column to appear and right-click.
Select Insert from the menu and choose Insert Columns to the Left or Right.
I'll select Right and now a column has been added to the table.
Actually, I don't think I need this column.
To delete a column, select just the column you want to delete, and then right-click your
mouse.
From the menu that appears, select Delete Columns.
You can delete multiple columns at a time, and you can delete rows the same way.
My information looks better in the table than just as, you know, text in a list, but it's
kind of plain.
Word has these great preformatted table styles that you can apply to your tables that can
really make your documents look very professional.
In the Table Styles section you can click through the various styles and see how they
affect the table, or click the More arrow to access more style options.
There are SO many choices.
If you want to see certain styles first you can change the settings in the Table Styles
Options group.
For example, I know that I want every other line in my table to be formatted differently.
This is called Banded Rows.
If I select and deselect it changes the styles that are displayed.
I can do the same thing with the other options.
Here, I like this one right here.
To select the style, just click it, and it will appear in the document.
Yeah.
That looks pretty good.
Now, if you wanted to, you could manually change the table border or shading, change
line weight, or erase part of the table.
I like the table style as it is, so I'm going to leave it alone.
For this table, I had the text already in the document, but you can also insert a table
from scratch.
Place your insertion point in the document where you want the table to appear.
I'd like a table that displays the revenue by client, so I'll place my insertion point
there.
Make sure the Insert tab is selected, and then click the Table command.
From the menu, use the diagram to select the number of columns and rows you want in your
table.
Now, just drag your mouse over the squares.
There, I want 5 rows and 4 columns.
Left-click your mouse and the table appears in the document.
Now you can enter your text into the table.
Let's see.
My clients are...
I'm going to finish entering my text into this table and use the Table Styles to format
it.
Why don't you explore the Table Tools Design tab and see all the things you can do to format
the tables in your documents.