Tables for Organizing and Formatting

What You Will Learn

Tables of Contents and Tables of Authorities are not covered in this chapter (CK Note)

This chapter last edited by Charles Kenyon on Thursday 10 June 2004

(this guide table of contents) ------- (MS Word New Users FAQ)

Tables Overview

Everything from pleading captions to file indices to stock certificate listings can be managed in tables. In this chapter, we cover the basics first—how to create, modify, and prepare your tables for the legal environment. Next we'll look at some of the ways to make tables useful in your firm. You will also see a greater number of references to Word 2000 than in other chapters. This is because the Table feature in Word 2000 has been greatly enhanced to offer more functionality.

You can use tables to align numbers in columns, and then sort and perform calculations on them. You can also use tables to create interesting page layouts and arrange text and graphics.

Creating Tables

The Insert Table button on the Standard toolbar is one of the fastest ways to insert a table in a document. If you click the button, a box extends below the button with smaller boxes inside. Move your mouse over the number of cells you'd like to insert into the document. Notice that the cells change color as you move the mouse over them. This indicates the size of the table to be created. When you have the desired number of cells selected, click to insert the table into the current location of the mouse pointer.

The Insert Table button is limited in how many cells it can display initially. When building a large or more complex table, you may find using the Table menu more useful. In Word 97, from the Table menu, choose Insert Table; in Word 2000, from the Table menu, choose Insert, and then select Table. The Word 2000 Insert Table dialog box is shown in the next figure.

The Insert Table dialog box in both Word 97 and Word 2000 allows up to 63 columns and 32,767 rows in a table, but Word 2000 lets you exercise more formatting choices and allows you to set defaults for subsequent visits to the dialog box.

Practice: Insert a Table with the Insert Table dialog

1. Make sure you're on a blank line in your document.
2. In Word 97, from the Table menu choose Insert Table. In Word 2000, from the Table menu choose Insert, then select Table.
3. In the Number of columns box, type 100.
4. Click OK. Note the error message (Both Word 97 and 2000 have a limit of 63 columns, no matter the paper size, orientation, etc.).
5. In the Number of columns box, type 4.
6. In the Number of rows box, type 100.
7. Click OK.

If you need more than 63 columns or 32767 rows, consider using Microsoft Excel or Access, depending on the task.

One of the most exciting things about Word is a feature called Draw Table. Draw Table allows you to create your own tables with special row and column dimensions to begin with—no more messy eyeballing your row and column sizes. To activate the table-drawing tool, click the Tables and Borders button on the Standard toolbar—the button resembles a pencil resting over a table.

Notice that now you not only see the Tables and Borders toolbar if you couldn't before, but you can also click and drag with the mouse pointer in the document to create a table. Draw Table is a great feature for situations where a standard-sized table won't do: pleading captions are a perfect example. Let's draw one.

Practice: Insert a Table with the Draw Table tool

1. On the Standard toolbar, click the Tables and Borders button. If you want to add the new toolbar near your menu bar instead of having it float over the document, you can "dock" it by double-clicking anywhere in the title bar that says "Tables and Borders." This gets the toolbar out of the way of your work and gives you more room to create and modify your table.
2. Notice that when you move your mouse pointer within the document, the mouse pointer changes shape and resembles the pencil. Click and drag from one corner of the table you're making to the opposite corner. You should see a large box, which is really a one-celled table. Your table should resemble the following example:

3. Inside the middle of the table, click and drag from top to bottom. Repeat to create a very narrow column in the center of the table as shown in the next example.

If you accidentally lose the Draw Table tool on your mouse pointer, click the pencil button at the far left side of the Tables and Borders toolbar to reactivate it.

If you have already created data in a tabular format in another application, there is a good chance that all you need to do to create a table with that data in Word is copy and paste.

Practice: Create a Table from Another Application

1. Make sure Word is open. Open the file in the other application that contains your tabular data.
2. Select (if necessary) and copy the data from the source file.
3. Switch to Word.
4. Choose Paste from the Edit menu.

Word 2000 has the ability to "nest" tables within another table. Nested tables are particularly useful when you use a table to lay out a page and then want to use a table to present other information such as quarterly earnings as a table within the table. To create a nested table:

1. On the Tables and Borders click Draw Table. The pointer changes to a pencil.
2. Position the pencil in the cell where you want the nested table (or a table inside another table).
3. Draw the new table. To define the table boundaries, draw a rectangle. Then draw the column and row lines inside the rectangle.
4. When you finish creating the nested table, click a cell, and start typing or insert a graphic.

Modifying Tables

The size of a table is dependent on information being added or removed from the table structure. To insert a row at the end of a table, press TAB while in the last cell of the table. You can also add a row or column in different locations within the table by accessing the Table or Shortcut menu (alternate click) while the mouse pointer is within the table.

To insert or delete rows and columns, select what you want to affect—rows to affect rows, columns to affect columns—and then select the appropriate option from the Table menu (rows or columns).

How can I make a pleading caption in Word?

There are a couple of different methods you can use to create a pleading caption in Word, but tables are one of the best ways to do this.

Practice: Make a "Scalloped" Caption Using Tables

1. Perform steps 1 through 5 in the "Insert a Table with Draw Table tool" in the preceding exercise.
2. At this point the bottom left border needs fixing. Click in the left-most cell and from the Format menu, and choose Borders and Shading. Click on the diagram on the right side of the dialog box to have only a bottom border. Click OK.

If you have a lengthy caption (you've probably seen some that go on for pages), you may have noticed that the scallops don't automatically copy down the center column of the table. If you don't find this acceptable, consider another way to make a caption where you use a border line separating the parties from the pleading title. Many courts now accept captions prepared this way—check your court rules to see if you can use this type of caption.

Practice: Make a "Bordered" Caption Using Tables

1. In a blank document, create a table with two columns and only one row.
2. Remove the printing borders by clicking inside the table, and then pressing ALT+CTRL+U.
3. Fix the bottom left border as described in step 2 in the "Make a "Scalloped" Caption Using Tables" example that preceded this exercise. While you're in the Borders and Shading dialog, turn on the printing border for the right side of the leftmost cell as well.

In this type of caption, the border automatically extends as you add cross-complainants or type a long pleading title.

How can I get the first row to repeat at the top of each page throughout the table?

In lengthy tables such as file or pleading indices, holdings lists, and other legal documents, if a table spills onto subsequent pages you can make headings repeat at the top of each new page that contains a part of the table.

Practice: Create Table Headings

1. In a blank document, from the Table menu, choose Insert Table (Insert, then Table in Word 2000).
2. Create a table with two columns and 250 rows.
3. In the first cell of the first column, type Attorney.
4. In the second cell of the first column, type Extension.
5. Select the first row of your table, and then from the Table menu, choose Headings (it's called Heading Rows Repeat in Word 2000).
6. Go to Print Preview and view your handiwork.
7. Word also allows you to have more than one row repeat at the top of the page. Just select the rows that you want to repeat and perform step 5 above.

Continued Note in Heading Lines (CK Note)

How to have the word "continued" in the headings of multipage tables on continuation pages.

There is no automatic way to do this. Several Word MVPs have posted the following solution, though, and it works.

Put the word "continued" in the heading line on the first page. Then create a textbox or autoshape anchored outside the heading row and use it to cover the word. The shape or text box should have no border and white fill. This way, the word continued will not appear on the first page but will appear when the row (without the textbox or shape) is repeated on subsquent pages.

When I have a lengthy entry in one of my cells, the text can break over a page. Is there a way to turn on the equivalent of "Block Protect" or "Keep Lines Together" in Word?

It's possible to have it either way in Word—you can have your cells break over a page or not, depending on your preferences for the job at hand. By default, the text in a table breaks across a soft page break in both Word 97 and Word 2000. Let's explore the options in the following exercise.

Practice: Prevent Cells from Breaking Over a Soft Page Break

1. In a blank document, from the Table menu, choose Insert Table (Insert, then Table in Word 2000).
2. Create a table with 2 columns and 250 rows.
3. Make sure you're in Page Layout view (Print Layout view in Word 2000).
4. Go to the bottom of the first page and type in one of the cells until you see text both above and below the Soft Page Break.
5. Make sure your cursor is anywhere in the table, and then from the Table menu, choose Cell Height and Width (Table Properties in Word 2000).
6. In the Cell Height and Width dialog box, find the check box Allow row to break across pages.
7. If the option is checked, the text can break over a page. If not, the row that contains the cell that broke over a page is moved to the next page in its entirety.

This does not prevent cells from breaking over hard page breaks. Also, if you have more than a page of text in a cell, a soft page break must exist somewhere in that text, and the text breaks over a page even though you've cleared the checkbox in step 6.

Is there an easy way to make a file index in Word? I had a macro in WordPerfect and now I've got to make them from scratch.

The bad news is that you do have to make it all over again; the good news is that you'll only have to create it once. Using the power of tables together with AutoText, you'll be able to make a killer file index that you can use repeatedly.

Practice: Create a File Index Using Tables

1. Open a blank document, and from the Table menu, choose Insert Table (Insert, then Table in Word 2000).
2. Create a table with as many columns as you need (we'll use 4 in this example) and 2 rows.
3. In the first cell of the first column, type "Number".
4. In the first cell of the second column, type "Document Name".
5. In the first cell of the third column, type "Date Filed".
6. In the first cell of the fourth column type "Description".
7. Click in the second cell of the first column, and then turn on numbering (On the Formatting toolbar, click the Numbering button).

This will give you a numbered column down the left side.

As you add rows to your table, the numbered list on the left side increments. Try it! If you save your finished product from the exercise above as an AutoText entry, you can retrieve it as many times as you like in the future.

My table column resizes as I type…

Table columns in Microsoft Word 2000 automatically resize to fit text or graphics. If you type a word that is longer than the width of the column, the column adjusts to accommodate the text. If you don't want your columns to resize when you type, click in the table, click Table Properties on the Table menu, and then click the Table tab. Click Options, and then clear the Automatically resize to fit contents check box.

I am doing very simple math in my Word table. Is it possible to create subtotals?

It's possible to take any value in just about any part of a Word document (it doesn't have to be in a table) and run it through any number of math functions against other values in other parts of a Word document. The way to do it is to use bookmarks. An example of how this works is shown in the next Practice exercise.

Practice: Work with Subtotals in a Word Document

1. In a blank document, create three separate tables with values in the first two cells of the first two tables.

2. We're going to derive subtotals for the two tables and then a grand total of the two subtotals in the single-cell table at the bottom. Click in the third cell of each of the first two tables and click the AutoSum button at the far right side of the Tables and Borders toolbar.
3. Select the first sum field (it should say "1500" if you've used the example above), making sure not to select the end-of-cell marker after it (it kind of looks like a spider).
4. After selecting the first sum field in step 3, go to the Insert menu and choose Bookmark. For keyboard users, CTRL+SHIFT+F5 gets you to the Bookmark dialog box.
5. Give the selection a bookmark name like "Table1Total".
6. Repeat steps 3-5 for the second total ("450" if you're following the example above), calling it "Table2Total".

If you get a result which says "!Syntax Error,", try the exercise again, making sure that you don't select the end-of-cell marker after the number when bookmarking.

I never could understand sorting in Word tables. Is it possible to sort dates and numbers as well as text?

It's easy to sort dates, numbers and text in a Word table. If a simple, one-level sort is all you're after, you'll be surprised at how easy it is. All you have to do is click in a column that has a list of things you'd like to sort (like filing dates, for example) and click one of the two sort buttons near the right side of the Tables and Borders toolbar. The practice exercise below should give you an idea.

Practice: Sorting Dates in Tables

1. In a table, enter an array of dates that are near each other but have varying formats, like the following:

2. Click anywhere in the column and click either one of the sort buttons at the right side of the Tables and Borders toolbar. One button sorts in Ascending order, the other in Descending order. Word automatically converts dates in many different formats behind the scenes so it can sort them correctly.

You've probably set an exact row height that's smaller than the text you are trying to display. Click in the cell. On the Table menu, click Table Properties, and then click the Row tab. In the Row height is box, click At least.

Can I insert an Excel worksheet into Word?

One of the reasons Microsoft Office is so popular is how all of the programs work together. Excel is a spreadsheet program that makes number crunching, organizing and presenting data very easy — even for the mathematically challenged.

To insert an Excel worksheet into a Word document, click the Insert Microsoft Excel Worksheet toolbar button on the Standard toolbar. Double-click to activate the Excel worksheet. Now you have the full functionality of Excel without leaving the Word window.

Labels in Microsoft Word are tables, usually set up using the Envelope and Labels wizard or the Mailmerge wizard. Once the labels are set up, you can manipulate the them using any of the techniques given here for tables.

Links to Troubleshooting Resources (CK Note)

See also: Troubleshooting

See also: Table Causes Document File Size to Increase (Word 2000 +)