Thursday, March 26, 2015

FORMATTING A TABLE IN MS WORD

Hello everyone,

In my earlier post of MS Word tutorial, i talked about inserting a Table in MS Word document. Today, the post is about HOW TO FORMAT THE TABLE in MS WORD. All rights, lets get started,

Follow these simple steps to format your table:

Step 1: Insert the table (For information on this, click here)


You will get a document like this.

Step 2: Start Typing Text in the Table Columns

All right, before you just jump to Formatting your table, do enter the text / data that you want to enter in your table without worrying about the formatting part. You will see your table somewhat similar to what is shown in the pic.


The pic shows just the table with the text with no formatting at all. Now, once you are done with this, move on to step 3.

Step 3: Select the table



Now select the table by clicking on the Cross button (in Red Circle). I have changed the page of the color for a proper visibility so don't bother about the color and just concentrate on the table.

Note: This button will not be visible otherwise but once you bring the pointer anywhere on the table, you will see it.

Step 4: Go to Table Tools. 

You will not find any particular Tab by the name of TABLE TOOLS in MS Word, but two tabs namely DESIGN & LAYOUT in extreme right of all the tabs. These both tabs together are called the TABLE TOOLS (in red circle).




Now under the DESIGN tab, you can see various designs and color schemes for the table. Select one that suits your table. You can also customize the given color schemes by simply clicking on the SHADING ICON (color bucket with underline) and selecting your liked colors for different rows and columns. For that, you will have to select individual rows / columns, whichever needs customized formatting.

Step 5: Moving to LAYOUT TAB.

Now once you have completed experimenting and playing with various colors and schemes for your table, its time to format the layout. It is going to give a polished and professional look to your table.
Lets see what all can we do with the Layout Tab. (See in red outline).



You will see various other tabs under the layout tab but you don't have to be confused and worried using all of them right away. We are just into the basics, so for you right now the most effective and useful ones are first and foremost the Alignment Tab. It allows you to align your text in columns as per your requirements, may be left, right or center and where the text will be placed in the column, Top, center or bottom of the column.With Text Direction Tab, you can change the direction of the text written in the column if it is to be changed.

But do not forget to select the table or row before formatting.

Step 6: Table width adjustment.

Now once you have formatted the color and text alignment of the table, you will get your table something like this as shown:


This is a formatted table, but not really looking professional and polished. The columns are taking up unnecessary space and are looking in bad shape too. So now lets adjust the width of the table.

Select table > Layout > Cell Size 

If you have some fixed size of the cells to be put, you can enter the digits in the Row Height & Column Width area.
If not, then simply click on Autofit > Autofit Contents and you will get the table like as shown below:



Now if you want to change the position of your table, follow step 7 and if not, your table is done :)

Step 7: Positioning the table

This is very simple. go to the home tab  and click on the alignment tabs, from where we align the text of the document. You can place your table in left, right or center of the document.

So, here the tutorial ends for How to Format the Table in MS Word. I hope it was clear enough for you to understand. Do not forget to put your valuable comments.

Happy learning...