Table Autofit to Contents/Window (2003 Prof./SP1)

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We work on many proposals and have had a lot of Word problems since moving to Office 2003. Table Autofit to Contents, Autofit to Window

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Nancy… Word has made some significant changes to tables in Word 2003. If you create a table in Word 2003, you will notice that there is a ‘style’ attached to each cell. I have found documents using older (Word 2000 and priror) tables, Word tends to get very fussy and documents have become corrupt for me as well. You may want to remove the old tables in all your templates and replace with a new table. It may seem like a lot of work now, but you will spend less time troubleshooting the problems you are now faced with…. hope this helps… trish

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Thanks a lot for this suggestion. Our templates are mostly blank pages — title page, TOC section & then main body section. All our document content comes in later. But the tables in the headers & footers come from before 2003., so I’ll replace them with 2003 tables. With new tables, we select entire table & apply our style for table text. But I see now the end row markers are still called “Table Grid” and I can’t change it. Hope this makes the difference!

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If the documents are blank, you may just want to create brand new documents and start from scratch. Headers/Footers are one of those items that like to go corrupt – and, starting from scratch may fix any other corruption issues you may have.

With respect to the style Table Grid, this is what I mentioned earlier, 2003 now places a style in each cell – Table Grid. What I do is create another style based on Table Grid, and I call it Table Text, place my desired formatting for the style and apply. If you need anymore assistance, just let me know… good luck… trish

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Hello Trish:

Can you please elaborate on “Word has made some significant changes to tables in Word 2003”? I have been trying to find a reference and I’m coming up with nothing. I’ve gotten ahold of the old Office Resource Kit white paper on Wd2000 to Wd2003 migration issues, but so far don’t see anything that’s relevant. (But it’s a large doc, so I’ll keep reading. )

Here’s why I’m asking: I have users who have sheets of labels they created in Wd2000 that print differently in Wd2003. I gave them the workaround of opening the header/footer and deleting the empty paragraphs. For me, that has been working consistently. I have shared with them that tables are different, but they want to know why and how it can be “fixed”. (How do you fix something that is not broken? )

When I create a page of labels from scratch in Wd2003, I don’t have the problem.

Thanks for your help.

Angie

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I, too, have noticed that Word tables (2003, SP2) behave poorly. When I try to manually adjust the width of columns, sometimes they won’t respond at all if I try to drag the line inbetween, sometimes they adjust the width of multiple columns at the same time, sometimes they just go CRAZY!

I thought it was associated with the checkbox under Table Properties|Table tab|Preferred table width, but when I uncheck this box and change a width of a column, the check comes back and a new width measurement appears. I have even unchecked the box under Preferred column width and Preferred cell with in addition to Preferred table width. Again, after adjusting the width of one column, one or more of these measurements reappears and you cannot move anything until you go into the Properties dialog box and uncheck everything again.

This happens predictably when I copy and paste a table from Excel and try to format it in Word. It happens randomly when I create the table in Word from scratch.

I deal with formatting large tables on a regular basis and this malfunction has really slowed down my productivity. Are their any “settings” I need to change to have Word tables respond to my mouse commands????

TIA,
Georgette

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Hey Georgette,

Don’t you hate that? I also get that whenever I paste from Excel. I’ve taken on the habit of automatically unselecting “Automatically resize to fit contents” whenever I work on a table, regardless of its source. As long as it is selected, mouse adjustments are too difficult. (or maybe it’s just me )

I’m going to try and attach a screenshot.

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Many thanks… I tried unchecking that box and sometimes it will let me grab a line to alter a column width, sometimes not.

So frustrating. There mus be some other place that has to be unchecked… a global setting, perhaps??

Anyone, anyone…

Thanks,
Georgette

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See Herb Tyson’s reply in Text wrapping in Word 2003 Tables.

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Hi Angie… there does not seem to be a lot written on the differences between Word 2000 and Word 2003, but lots of grumbles… here’s a search on google for Word 2000 tables in Word 2003.

Frustrated Word Table Users – Word 2000 to 2003

As you can see, there are many frustrated people out there… my knowledge of Word is fairly good (however, everyday I still seem to discover new things!). With my experience, I recreate old Word 2000 tables with the new Word 2003 and create my own styles within. In Word 2000, people tended to use the Normal style in the table – Word 2003 does not like this for unknown reasons – it prefers the Table Grid style and I have found my documents give me the “your document is corrupt due to a table….”. Ensure that you use this Table Grid style and create new styles based on it – this should resolve most of your problems – I know it seems like a lot of work – however, it should get better.

I have read that turning the compatibility option (Tools, Options, Compatibility): Use Word 2002 Table Style Rules may help. I don’t like to play with the compatibility but, instead, fix the existing problem!!!

Hope this helped a bit… trish

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