Direct formatting in tables (WordXP)

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Is there a way to remove direct formatting in tables (that is, applied to the cell margins)? The “Table Normal” style has cell margins of 0.19 cm. However, sometimes I receive document where someone has changed the cells margins to 0.05 cm.

To remove direct formatting from a paragraph, I just type Ctrl + Spacebar and it goes back to the default. Is there a way to do this with tables?

Attached is an example.

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The shortcut to conform paragraph formatting to its underlying style is Ctrl+Q. I don’t know whether that works with Table styles or only Paragraph styles.

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I can’t see how to modify the Table Normal style – are you able to edit this style? Are you sure that Table Normal explicitly defines the cell width or is that left up to the default Word setting.

Reapplying a table style seems to override local cell indents on Word 2003. This appears to work for either general table and specific cell indents. Perhaps you need to use another table style which you can edit and therefore explicitly define the cell margins.

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This has always bothered me. You can select the entire table, and go to Table Properties, Cells, and attempt to set the cell margins back to the table default cell margins (by checking the “same as the whole table”), and it just won’t take. You could set the cell margins back to the table default, cell by cell. This sometimes works. If the value is “0” it ignores it.

Now that you reminded me that this is lacking… here’s a little macro that will reset each cell you have selected (one, a row, a column, etc.)

Sub ResetCellMargins()

Dim intCell As Integer
If Selection.Cells.Count > 0 Then
For intCell = 1 To Selection.Cells.Count
Selection.Cells(intCell).TopPadding = Selection.Tables(1).TopPadding
Selection.Cells(intCell).BottomPadding = Selection.Tables(1).BottomPadding
Selection.Cells(intCell).LeftPadding = Selection.Tables(1).LeftPadding
Selection.Cells(intCell).RightPadding = Selection.Tables(1).RightPadding
Next intCell
End If
End Sub

It’s like Ctrl Q for cell margins!

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