From the course: Cert Prep: Word Associate - Microsoft Office Specialist for Office 2019

Create tables - Microsoft Word Tutorial

From the course: Cert Prep: Word Associate - Microsoft Office Specialist for Office 2019

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Create tables

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- [Instructor] Tables organize data into rows and columns, which makes text easier to read and easier to format. After watching this video, you'll know how to convert text to tables, convert tables to text, and how to create tables by specifying rows and columns. Let's jump right into our Create Tables document, and scroll down to our first set of information. We have data that shows headings, New Events Spaces, Maximum Occupancy, Food Service, and Rental Fee. I'd like to take this information and convert it into a table because I think it would be much easier to read and look more professional. When you're working with tables, it's helpful if you turn Show/Hide on. That's on your Home Ribbon in your Paragraph Group. Now I can see that the information that I have selected is separated with tabs that will help me as I convert this information into a table. Now that it's selected, I'll go to Insert, Table, Convert Text to Table. There's a couple of questions that I need to answer, first of all, what is the number of columns I'd like to create? Well, it looks like I have four columns of information, and Word actually picked up on that and typed 4 in for me. Next, the number of rows. You can see that that is grayed out because, once again, Word has determined that I will need five rows for my data. We have Autofit behavior settings, Fixed column width, which means the columns will all be the same width, Autofit to contents, which means each column will be sized based on the amount of space it needs in the longest length of text, so Medium Reception Hall would make the determination as to how wide the New Events Spaces' column would be. We also have Autofit to window, where the table would go from margin to margin, and autofit the information in. I'll leave Fixed column width, Auto selected. And the last question I need to answer is how is my text separated? Well, we know it's separated using tabs, but notice that you can also use paragraph marks, commas, or other symbols. With Tab selected, I'll click OK. And that quickly, my information was turned from standard text, separated by tabs, into a very nice-looking table. Let's scroll down in our document and take a look at another table that has already been created. This table shows the Meeting Room name and the Maximum Occupancy. I selected the table by clicking on the square with the crosshairs. By selecting the table, it opened my Table Tools, Design Tab. I'll go to Layout, and I'll select over on the right-hand side, Convert to Text. So if you have a table that's been created, and you'd like to convert it to normal text, this is how you do it. Now, I can choose how I want it separated, paragraph marks, tabs, commas, et cetera. I think tabs work really well. I'll leave that selected and click OK, and that's what my data looks like after I convert it from a table into normal text. Let's scroll down again, and I'll click under the heading Landon Hotel Locations. I'd like to show you how you can create a blank table and determine the number of rows and columns that will be included in the table. I'll click on Insert, Table, and there's this wonderful grid. You see that as a I mouse over the rows and go across the columns, it is creating the table for me in my document. I'll select four columns and four rows, and click, and that quickly I have inserted a new blank table into my document. Let me show you another way that you can quickly insert a new table. I'll click on the square to select a table, right-click, and go to Delete. Back on Insert, I'll go to Table, Insert Table. This is where I can select the number of rows and columns. I'll put in a four-column table with four rows, and once again, we can set the Autofit behavior to Fixed column width, Autofit to contents, or Autofit to window. You can also click Remember dimensions for new table, so if you're always inserting the same formatted table into documents, it will remember the dimensions for you. I'll go ahead and click OK. So that's how easy it is to convert text to a table, or an existing table back into a text format, and you have a couple of different ways that you can create a new table by specifying how many rows and columns you'd like to include.

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