Make professional-look like tables in Word 2010

[Msoff]

Hi,

I am trying to insert some tables in Word 2010 file, but when I "fit text" in the cells, it shrinks in some cells and enlarges in others, deforming the letters and messing up the inter-letter spaces!

Below in the attached image is an example, where the first table is a normal one, created by default setting; menu insert>table>number of rows and columns>

And the second table is the same but with "fit text" option selected (right click on the table>proprieties>cells>option>fit text (checked).


The table then deforms!
Is there any genuine way to fix this problem and "fit text" to have a good table format?

Thank you in advance

[Stefan Blom]

The "Fit text" option in the Cell Options dialog box is useless, as you have noticed. It's better to leave it unchecked and instead resize column widths to fit the text (if necessary).

[Msoff]

Thank you, Stefan, for your answer.
It is useless indeed while it should be useful and handy.
But, in fact, with Microsoft we rarely have a "perfect" product!
Doing it manually is time consuming, specially if we have a lot of tables or a large table to work on.
Moreover, the output manually will not be as accurate as expected.

[Stefan Blom]

I have to admit that I'm not sure what look you're after. Usually, perfect "text fitting" in cells isn't required.

[Msoff]

I just would like to have uniform cells and texts in term of dimension, spaces around text, etc. in someway similar to tables made in professional edited books or magazines, but this is not possible in Word. Even Excel cannot!
Even if we make tables in Excel, and copy/paste them in Word this won't work; will not keep the same formatting!

[Stefan Blom]

If you find that Excel does a better job with a range of cells, you could always embed an Excel sheet into your Word document. It works as long as the object is smaller than a page in Word.

[Msoff]

It does not work properly (Excel in Word)!
MS should work better to make it possible without provoking much headache!

[Stefan Blom]

If Excel doesn't improve the situation, you might as well do this in Word...

I'm still not sure I understand what the problem is. In a previous message you mentioned uniform cells and spacing, which you should be able to accomplish in Word, although it probably won't look exactly the same as a published book.

[Msoff]

Thank you Stefan, I'll manage it manually.

[Flea22]

I think the Fit Text is doing exactly what it's suppose to - it's fitting the text to the cell. That's why it is spacing out the letters or shrinking them in. Probably what you are looking for is the AutoFit to Content or the AutoFit to Window (right click on the table, select AutoFit).

[fumei]

The issue - and this goes back to early versions of Word - is that Word is a word-processor. It is not a layout applicatiuon.

I heard this same discussion back with Word versus Quark. That is the way it is. A word-processor is not a layout application. So we can complain about what Microsoft should be able to do in Word

"someway similar to tables made in professional edited books or magazines,"

but the reality is those use layout applications NOT word-processors.