What’s with Word 2000 tables? (2000)

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What’s with Word 2000 collecting all rows of a table onto one page? I see three autofix options, but not a ‘don’t autofit’ option. Under autoformat, I unticked autofit. I have rows so tiny, rows on top of rows, columns on top of columns. This happens as soon as I insert a row.

And do I really have to figure out where the table is ready to go to a new page and insert my own break? And then, when I have to redo it, I have to go into normal view and delete the original page break and it Ctrl+Enter to get a new page break? REALLY?

Also, what’s the 2 pages per sheet supposed to do? Or does it totally not do it with a table? My table runs off the page; if I switch to landscape and break the table, it gives a portrait looking page, running off the page. In portrait, it shows a landscape split in setup.

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Hi Wendy,

You shouldn’t have to be doing the steps you describe; with respect to page breaks, Word 2000 tables behave the same way as Word 97 tables.
So there’s likely something set in your table that is causing this offputting behavior – just not sure what that is (unless you simply have a dodgy Normal.dot, or maybe even a printer driver issue).

I’ve got my own list of ‘new features in Word 2000 tables’ gripes, starting with the fact that you can now drag and resize tables much like graphic objects – in almost every case I can think of, that is bad news in the hands of users!

Regards,
Gary

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I haven’t had trouble before, but maybe I haven’t had a table go over one page. I did install that cheap pdf maker, that has caused one friend to not be able to read this file (when opening the Word .doc from mail, Acrobat opens and says ‘does not begin with %pdf’). I wonder if it’s doing other things too. I had NOT saved this as a pdf before the friend’s problem happened. I don’t have text next to the table, and I’ve been using tables for years, so I don’t think I was doing anything funny. Definitely no table within the table.

Funny – the one thing I DO like is the handle that lets me reposition the whole table. I wondered if the graphic-type handling was what was causing it to keep the table all on one page. But other than the problems I’m having, what’s the bad news about this feature?

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I thought of more funny things. I can’t remember why I copied the top three lines to a new document, then copied the rest from the original document to a new document, positioning my cursor in a new line at the end of the table. It put the whole pasted text at the beginning of the table, and the original lines at the end were not positioned correctly. When I cut the original lines, positioned my cursor at the first position in the table and did the paste, it pasted the original lines into the first cell. That used to work ok.

Also, when I try to select the top line of the table, it takes me to the end, unless I do it very carefully.

As I write this, it does sound as if I have the whole table inside a table cell. I originally created this table via convert text to table. Does that do a table within a table?

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Sorry for a response now to an old post, but I just came across it while researching a new problem.
When pasting text copied from another table (or elsewhere in the same table) into a Word2000 table, you must be sure to first select the cells that will be receiving the pasted text. Be sure to select the same number of rows and columns of cells as there were in the source material. Otherwise weird results ensue when you paste.

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Gary, I hate that “new feature” too.

Wendy, the other MAIN difference between Word tables in 97 and 2000 is that you can insert tables within tables. Perhaps you’re doing that somehow when you insert a row?

I found the best settings for tables to be (select the table and hit) Table-Properties, Row tab, remove “allow row to break across pages”. If you have a row at the bottom of a page, and you really want it at the top of the next page, don’t insert a page break. Instead, select the row at the bottom of the page and hit Format-Paragraph, line and page breaks tab, and choose Keep with next.

I also do these:

Tools-Autocorrect, autoformat as you type: remove all checkmarks from top and bottom sections, leaving the middle alone. (The Autoformat tab only applies if you’re using options like Table-Table Autoformat or Format-Autoformat which I hate and never, ever use.)

Tools-Options, Save tab, and checkmark the “don’t use features not available in Word 97”.

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Wendy

I have had this problem and I thought I was going to have to do those steps too. It usually appears if you have put text next to the table using the double-click anywhere and type method at any time (even if you subsequently delete the text).

To fix it: Go into Table properties, under the Table tab, chose text wrapping none.

That should fix your problem but you will not be able to have text next to your table unless you use a text box.

Hope that helps

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OK. Thanks, all. I’ll look at specific suggestions when I go home. What I’m hearing is that except for the moving and sizing handle, tables SHOULD function much the way they did in 97. That’s what I wanted to know. In this particular case, I get to delete a large row, so I’ll be back on one page anyway.

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