About tables

It's helpful to know what the various parts of a table are called.

Column

Row

Cell

Some parts of a table can only be seen if you display all formatting marks by clicking Show/Hide on the Standard toolbar.

Table move handle

End-of-row mark

Table resize handle

End-of-cell mark

• Use the Table AutoFormat command to quickly give your table a polished design.
• Use or modify the built-in table styles that come with Microsoft Word, or create your own styles to reuse later on.
• Move or copy a table to another place on a page, or resize a table.
• Adjust long tables to make sure that the information appears as you want it to when the table spans multiple pages.
• Make each column a fixed width, or let columns adjust based on the amount of text you type.
• Change the orientation of text from horizontal to vertical or vice versa.
• Add spacing between table cells, or add cell "padding" by changing cell margins.
• Insert nested tables to create page layouts.
• Sort lists inside a table.