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Problem aligning columns in combined Word tables

Anonymous
2015-10-16T14:19:18+00:00

Hello,

I had a document that had 5 tables that each had 2 columns. They were each separated by a paragraph of text outside of the paragraph. I wanted to combine all the tables into one table, so I deleted the text between the tables, so that the bottom line of table 1 appeared to be the same as the top line of table 2, and the bottom line of table 2 appeared to be the same as the top line of table 3, etc.

The problem is that the widths of each table, and the two columns within them, are all slightly different. I have tried repeatedly to adjust the widths via drag, shift drag, ctrl drag, and grasping-at-a-straw(!) drag of the various columns. It is a bit of a nightmare. When I do such dragging, before I let go of the mouse, I seem to be "almost there" in aligning the columns, but when I let go of the mouse, then column line of one or the other of the tables that I am aligning seems to jump out of alignment. It is very frustrating.

I feel like I am missing some key wisdom about table column alignment and combining tables that is preventing me from making progress. Due to very specific formatting within the tables, I really don’t want to go through the pain of recreating them from scratch. Does anyone have any clues??

Many thanks in advance.

Keith

Microsoft 365 and Office | Word | For home | Windows

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  1. Anonymous
    2015-10-16T15:34:45+00:00

    Keith,

    I had the same problem. Let's say you started with three tables, like this:

     Next you unite your tables by deleting the intervening text, like this:

    Now hover your cursor over the first column until the black down-arrow appears; left-click to select the column.

    It should look something like this:

    To clean this mess up, proceed as follows: 

    1. Go to the contextual TABLE TOOLS | LAYOUT tab that appears when you click anywhere in the table.
    2. In the "Cell Size" group, type in a value for "Width" (say, 2.00 for a width of 2 inches).
    3. Press ENTER.
    4. Repeat the process for each column.

    If the original columns are of different widths, it may appear that your selection crosses into an adjacent column, as shown by the gray shading above, but don't worry about it; your width setting will resize the original selected column, then you can move on to the remaining columns. Here's where you should end up:

    Pretty cool, huh?  Hope this helps.

    -Phil

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  1. Anonymous
    2015-10-25T15:08:22+00:00

    You can also press Alt and then line-up the columns exactly.

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  2. Anonymous
    2015-11-09T13:27:54+00:00

    Hi Ron,

    Your suggestion seemed to work well, thank you. Without holding the Alt key, the columns seem to jump in discrete increments, whilst with the Alt key held they seem to move continuously. This was especially useful as the tables were different widths to begin with.

    Thanks too to Phil and Suzanne. I think that your suggestions would have worked well too if the tables had all been exactly the same width to begin with.

    Keith

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  3. Suzanne S Barnhill 277.1K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2015-10-16T17:17:34+00:00

    Since you have just two columns, the simplest solution would be to select them both, right-click, and choose Distribute Columns Evenly. This will make them of equal width, and you can then drag the boundary between them to adjust their relative width as desired.

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  4. Anonymous
    2015-10-25T14:45:04+00:00

    Thank you for your responses Phil and Suzanne. Both are helpful. I am still trying to find the time to fully test these, but I thought we can close the task now as I am sure the question is answered. I just need to experiment a bit more.

    Regards,

    Keith

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