If the formatting feature you need is not on the Shortcut menu (which is fairly limited), click the Home Tab and select the features you need from the Font or Paragraph group. Right-click anywhere inside the table, and this small menu pops up adjacent to the longer Table Options menu. If you want to change the font or customize the paragraphs inside the table, use the Format Shortcut menu. Select Table Tools > Design > Table Styles, then scroll through the gallery of styles. The table below uses one of the many preset styles that comes with Word. Make your table pop with Table Styles, Shading, Border Styles, Borders, or Border Painter. Click the down arrow in the field box under Art, then choose a border-mostly simple clip art-from the list. Or, right-click anywhere within the table, and select Table > Convert to Range.
To remove a table but keep data and formatting, go to the Design tab Tools group, and click Convert to Range. Underneath the table style templates, click Clear. Select Table Tools > Design > Borders > Border Painter, and click the Page Border tab in the Borders and Shading dialog box. On the Design tab, in the Table Styles group, click the More button. There’s also an option to add artwork borders to your pages. If you don’t like a feature you’ve added, just click the Undo button or press CTRL-Z. There’s no learning curve, just play with the features and see what happens. Highlight your table, then select Table Tools > Design> Table Styles, Shading, Border Styles, Borders, or Border Painter (see the graphic below for ideas). The Design tab is for adding borders, shading, styles, and customizing the header columns and rows. Wrap text around a table, change cell margins, convert table back to text, sort the table data, and/or add formulas. Review the Formula Format table in the graphic below for the correct commands that tell Word which direction to calculate (these go inside the parentheses). Word calculates the column of numbers and places the calculation in the target cell (where your cursor resides). Type Above between the parentheses, choose a format under Number Format such as dollars, percent, or general, then click OK. If you are unfamiliar with the formulas Word provides, click the down arrow under the Paste Function field, and choose a formula from the list. In the Formula dialog box type the SUM() formula in the Formula field box. To calculate the total salaries, position your cursor in the last row and the last column cell, and click the Formula button under the Data group.
I added a Salary column to the table below and entered some dollars, plus a new row at the bottom for the salary totals. You can even insert formulas to calculate your numeric data. Just choose the separator you prefer, so when the table grid disappears, the data isn’t all jumbled together. You can also convert your table back to a text block. For example, you can sort by Last Name, then by First Name. You can sort by column numbers or by column headers, and it provides two sort levels. With the table still highlighted, click Table Tools > Layout > Data > Sort to sort the table data alphabetically or numerically, just like in Excel. Select Cell Margins to change the margins inside each cell. Other features include Table Properties, which provides several options for aligning the table with the text or wrapping text around your table. To apply a heading style, select the text you want to format, then choose the desired heading in the Styles group on the Home tab.Menu options to modify a table structure. In the table of contents above, each chapter uses a heading style, so there are four sections. When you insert the table of contents, it will create a section for each heading. If you apply a heading style, you're telling Word that you've started a new part of your document. Styles also serve another important purpose: adding a hidden layer of organization and structure to your document.
If you've already read our Applying and Modifying Styles lesson, you know they're an easy way to add professional text formatting to different parts of your document.
However, with the right formatting, Word can create and update a table of contents automatically. And if you ever decide to rearrange your sections or add more information, you'll have to update everything all over again.
You could create a table of contents manually-typing the section names and page numbers-but it would take a lot of work.