Table (Column) question (2002 – XP)

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Sometimes when I copy/paste a table, I try to select a column and, to my surprise, the entire column is selected along with a few cells to the left or right of that column. I try to manipulate those cells by deleting and reconstruction and that often works but how do they get messed up to begin with? Is there something I am not doing correctly? This is a simple copy and paste operation of an entire table.

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This can happen if the widths of the cells in a column are not equal. For instance, if one cell in a column is a bit narrower then the others, Word will also select the cell next to that cell when you select the column.

You can correct this manually, or write a macro to set the cell widths.

It also happens if you have merged cells – for me a reason to avoid merging cells.

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When tables begin to act strangely, I suggest converting them to tab-delimited text, looking for extra tabs in the rows that are “off,” fixing them manually, and then converting the text back to a table. However, if cells have been merged or split intentionally, this will not yield good results.

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