Text in Table Appears in Columns in Word for Windows

ID: Q47597

The information in this article applies to:

SUMMARY

If the text in the cells of a table appears in columns instead of normal lines, the cell of the table may have paragraph formatting that includes an indent that is larger than the width of the column.

MORE INFORMATION

There are two methods to determine and correct this problem:

1. Check the ruler by doing the following: 

   a. Select the problem paragraph.

   b. Activate Paragraph mode by pressing CTRL+SHIFT+F10.

   Small triangles appear under the numbers on the ruler. The triangle
   on the right points left, and the triangle on the left points
   right, so that they point at each other. If this is not the case,
   the left paragraph indent is currently set larger than the cell
   width. The left triangle has two parts, which can be moved
   separately. The top section indicates the first-line indent and the
   bottom section indicates the left paragraph indent.

   The triangles can be moved with a mouse or the keyboard. When using
   the keyboard, the LEFT and RIGHT ARROW keys are used to position
   the ruler cursor, represented by a rectangular box on the ruler.
   Once the cursor is moved, do the following:

   a. To change the left or right paragraph indents, press either the
      "L" or "R" key (respectively) to move the indents to the current
      cursor position.

   b. To change the first-line indent, press the "F" key to move the
      first-line indent to the current cursor position.

   Using the mouse to position the left and right indents is
   accomplished by pointing at the appropriate triangle and, holding
   the left mouse button down, dragging it to the new position on the
   ruler, as follows:

   a. To set a first-line indent, move the left indent to the position
      desired for the first-line indent.

   b. To move just the left margin indicator (the bottom section of
      the triangle), hold the SHIFT key down and drag it back to the
      left.
2. Select the problem paragraph. From the Format menu, choose 
   Paragraph. If there are measurements in the From Left, From Right,
   or From First Line text boxes in the Indents group box, the
   measurements should be reduced or removed.
If the problem occurs only on the first line of a paragraph, the cause is a first-line indent that is too large for the cell width.

KBCategory: kbusage KBSubcategory: kbformat Additional query words: 6.0 6.0a 6.0c 1.x word6 winword 2.0 winword2 2.0a 2.0a-CD 2.0b 2.0c 

Keywords          : kbformat 
Version           : 1.x 2.x 6.0 6.0a 6.0c
Platform          : WINDOWS

Last Reviewed: July 31, 1997