I have a legacy docx file created in Microsoft Word 2008.



Whenever I create a table in this document, the table rows are created with a minimum vertical size. The text in the cells take up less than half of this vertical space. I want to reduce the size of the table row to match the size of the text in the row. How can I do this?

When I move the mouse directly over the line that separates the two rows, the mouse arrow changes to an icon of an equal sign with an arrow pointing out of the top and an arrow pointing out of the bottom. The mouse can now resize the vertical size of the row. I can increase the size of the row, but I cannot make it smaller than about 2x my font size.

I have no problem changing this on new Word documents I create with Word 2011, but not on these docx files. There must be a setting somewhere. Can someone help me?

But I cannot make the rows smaller to match the size of the text.

I am not familiar if the Office for Mac version is identical to the 2010 version or not but, use the Table Tools Layout menu/ribbon or the Table Properties menu to adjust the cell size to your specifications. You may have to play with it a lil to get exactly to what you want.

The default row height will reflect either:
a) whatever row height you've fixed for the preceding row (if you've done that); or
b) whatever space is required to accommodate a one-line paragraph in the paragraph Style being used. Thus, if the Style uses a 10pt font and a 6pt 'before' spacing, the row height will be around 16pt;
plus whatever top/bottom border spacing you've set for the table.

__________________
Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]