Word Paragraph Styles (font size) in Table changing halfway through document - set at 10 pt

[Katan]

I'm using Word 2016 and I have a style setup for tables called "Table Text".



It's Arial, size 10 (same as the Normal style), with different line spacing options.

Halfway through my document, I insert a new table and the font becomes Size 11 for some reason. It says the "Table Text" style is already applied, I click it again, but nothing happens. I change size 11 to 10, and "Table Text + " appears in the styles.

The "Table Text" style and all the previous tables before it and existing tables in the document after it are still correct. I cannot figure out why that's happening.

There's no page/section/style breaks in the document up to this point. If I copy and paste a previous table in, the style is correctly applied. Any new table however, is wrong.

Any ideas what's going on?

[Charles Kenyon]

Look into saving a table formatted the way you want as a Quick Table.
See: Quick Tables

If you save this in your Normal.dotm template rather than in the Building Blocks.dotx template, you can use AutoComplete to insert such a table by typing and pressing Enter.

[Charles Kenyon]

If you want, create a document with the table formatted the way you want and attach it here so we can look at it. That document should carry all the styles you use.
Attach a Sample File Demonstrating the Problem - Here's How

By the way, in my opinion, 10 pt is too small for general document use.
00 deleteme 1.png
I am a lawyer and use 10 pt for the stuff I don't want anyone to read.
Sometimes I will compromise and use 11.5. For things I file in court that I want judges to read, I use 14 pt.
If you want people to read what you write, don't make the text too dense.

[Guessed]

Formatting of text inside tables can be problematic because the font size can be complicated by the Table Style if it includes a font size specification. This can override the paragraph style and local formatting settings on your text.

Check out the name of the table styles applied throughout your document's tables. If you try different table styles you may see that the font size is impacted on some table styles but not others

[Katan]

Originally Posted by Charles Kenyon

Look into saving a table formatted the way you want as a Quick Table.
See: Quick Tables

If you save this in your Normal.dotm template rather than in the Building Blocks.dotx template, you can use AutoComplete to insert such a table by typing and pressing Enter.

I created my own template I use for documents. I read that if I mess with the normal.dotm and someone else opens it, it might mess up the formatting.

What's confusing me now is that I've noticed in the same table, with my "Table Text" style applied to the entire table, Column 1&2 is Arial Size 10, Column 3 is Arial Size 11. Changing size 11 to size 10, results in a "Table Text +" style appearing. Makes no sense.

I'll check out quick tables, see how that goes.

Originally Posted by Charles Kenyon

If you want, create a document with the table formatted the way you want and attach it here so we can look at it. That document should carry all the styles you use.
Attach a Sample File Demonstrating the Problem - Here's How

By the way, in my opinion, 10 pt is too small for general document use.
Attachment 21525
I am a lawyer and use 10 pt for the stuff I don't want anyone to read.
Sometimes I will compromise and use 11.5. For things I file in court that I want judges to read, I use 14 pt.
If you want people to read what you write, don't make the text too dense.

I'm a mechatronic design engineer and Size 10 Arial or Size 11 Calibri are the typical font styles preferred by the companies I've worked for. This company uses Arial 10 and size 7 for the small print. For the technical documents I create or modify, legibility has never been an issue.

I've created a test document with the issue. First table was pre-existing / in the upper half of the original document. The second table is newly inserted, and defaults to the wrong font size despite showing the correct style is applied.

[kilroyscarnival]

Originally Posted by Charles Kenyon

If you want, create a document with the table formatted the way you want and attach it here so we can look at it. That document should carry all the styles you use.
Attach a Sample File Demonstrating the Problem - Here's How

By the way, in my opinion, 10 pt is too small for general document use.
Attachment 21525
I am a lawyer and use 10 pt for the stuff I don't want anyone to read.
Sometimes I will compromise and use 11.5. For things I file in court that I want judges to read, I use 14 pt.
If you want people to read what you write, don't make the text too dense.

A different perspective: I work with engineers. Many of the tables contain a lot of detailed information, and Calibri 10 is very legible. Some fonts at 10pt are more compact and hard to read. Any table footnotes do get down to 9pt which is rather small. What works best for legal documents might not work as well for science and engineering.

[Charles Kenyon]

The points that Andrew makes are valid and important. Styles act a bit differently in tables.
I concur that simply applying the Table Text style, which is Arial 10 pt does NOT change the font size in a table.

I am going to move this thread to the Word|Tables forum.

Your sample is a bit anomalous in that in your initial table, the first column is 11 pts.

00 deleteme 1.png

I have my QAT display style and font information directly and that is shown in the screenshot.

I resized everything in your initial table to be Arial 10 (Direct formatting) and then selected the table and saved it as a Quick Table on my machine.
When inserted from Quick Tables, it maintained that formatting and shows the Table Text style.


P.S. I agree that 10 pt. Arial is quite legible.

[Italophile]

Originally Posted by Katan

I created my own template I use for documents. I read that if I mess with the normal.dotm and someone else opens it, it might mess up the formatting.

Documents inherit their styles from the template at the point of creation. From that point forward the styles in the document are independent of those in the template unless changes are explicitly saved back to the template. The only exception to this is if the document is set to automatically update styles.

The template "normal.dotm" is personal to the user so nobody else will be opening your template. Share the document with anyone else though and they can certainly mess with the formatting, but only in the document.

Originally Posted by Katan

What's confusing me now is that I've noticed in the same table, with my "Table Text" style applied to the entire table, Column 1&2 is Arial Size 10, Column 3 is Arial Size 11. Changing size 11 to size 10, results in a "Table Text +" style appearing. Makes no sense.

I've created a test document with the issue. First table was pre-existing / in the upper half of the original document. The second table is newly inserted, and defaults to the wrong font size despite showing the correct style is applied.

If the test document is based on the template you created then you have not set the template up correctly. The default font for the document is shown as Times New Roman.
Screenshot 2025-04-17 141210.png

For table styles to work correctly it is essential that they are inserted in a paragraph formatted with a style that matches the document defaults. For details see BEHIND THE CURTAIN: STYLES’ ORDER OF OPERATIONS and BEHIND THE CURTAIN: STYLES, DOC DEFAULTS, STYLE SETS, AND THEMES

The default table style used is Table Grid which is set to use Calibri 11pt, which is likely where the 11 point text is coming from. Calibri is also the font for the theme that is attached to the document/template.
Screenshot 2025-04-17 141156.png

If you want your documents to be consistent then you first need to ensure that your template is consistent. Based on the document you posted your template needs work.

[Katan]

Originally Posted by Charles Kenyon

The points that Andrew makes are valid and important. Styles act a bit differently in tables.

Your sample is a bit anomalous in that in your initial table, the first column is 11 pts.

I had a suspicion it wasn't the proper way to apply styles to tables but doing it that way was working, so I left it at that.

Yeah, not sure why the first column is 11 pts, maybe a copy and paste error creating the test document, I did whip it up in a rush. It's possible to apply my style to the first table and have it all 10 pts, but it was impossible to do with the second table.
No idea why that was happening in the same document but Italophile seems to have pointed me in the right direction.

Originally Posted by Italophile

Documents inherit their styles from the template at the point of creation. From that point forward the styles in the document are independent of those in the template unless changes are explicitly saved back to the template. The only exception to this is if the document is set to automatically update styles.

The template "normal.dotm" is personal to the user so nobody else will be opening your template. Share the document with anyone else though and they can certainly mess with the formatting, but only in the document.

Thanks for the clarification on the Normal template. I figured that was the case but wasn't entirely sure, so I just created a second template. Once I get it properly setup, I'll make it my Normal maybe.

Originally Posted by Italophile

If the test document is based on the template you created then you have not set the template up correctly. The default font for the document is shown as Times New Roman.

Ah, I thought changing the Normal style was enough to set the default font. Also I didn't know there was a default table style either. I would never have discovered it was Table Grid by myself. What I thought was semi-intuitive on Word is actually somewhat convoluted

I have no idea why applying Table Text (wrongly in my case) worked for a number of documents and then decided that it wanted to mix the styles and have Arial 11. Changing the default font to Arial made the table go to Calibri 11, then changing Table Grid to my settings seems to have worked. Thanks for the help and I'll have a read of the pages you linked

[Italophile]

Prior to Word 2007 changing the normal style was the only way to set the document default.

Just as most styles are based on Normal table styles inherit their settings from the Table Normal style. Table Normal should inherit its settings from Normal, but without any paragraph spacing.

[Katan]

Why have a different place to set the default but still have the Normal style, which most other styles are based off? Feels conflicting...

Having the default be the Normal seems more intuitive to me but I clearly don't understand the pro's and con's of it all. ***edit: One of the links posted seems to talk about it, not that I understand it yet

[Italophile]

Ours is not to reason why…