Formatting an ASCII Table with Tabs

Many people, for one reason or another, always seem to use tabs to set up simple tables rather than using the built-in table editor that Word includes. If you want to quickly convert the "tabbed table" to a real Word table, you will appreciate this tip. The macro presented here, TabsToTable, assumes that each line represents a different row in the table, and that tabs represent divisions between columns.

You might wonder why you would want to use a macro to convert a tabbed table, rather than use the Convert Text to Table option from the Table tool. (The Table tool is visible in the Tables group on the Insert tab of the ribbon.) The reason is simple: the Convert option assumes that every tab represents a column. If you have been around the block a few times, you already know that many times tabbed tables use multiple tabs between columns. Thus, the first task of the macro is to replace multiple tabs with a single tab, and then do the conversion.

Sub TabsToTable
    With Selection.Find
        .ClearFormatting
        .Replacement.ClearFormatting
        .Text = "^t{2,}"
        .Replacement.Text = "^t"
        .Forward = True
        .Wrap = wdFindStop
        .Format = False
        .MatchCase = False
        .MatchWholeWord = False
        .MatchAllWordForms = False
        .MatchSoundsLike = False
        .MatchWildcards = True
    End With
    Selection.Find.Execute Replace:=wdReplaceAll
    Selection.ConvertToTable _
    Separator:=wdSeparateByTabs, _
    Format:=wdTableFormatNone
End Sub

When you are ready to run the macro, simply select the text you want to convert. When you run this macro, you will get the same thing you would get if you selected the Convert Text to Table option from the Table tool. This means your columns might look funky; they will definitely need to be resized. But the hard work of getting rid of all the tabs has been done for you.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (5955) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and Word in Microsoft 365. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Word here: Formatting an ASCII Table with Tabs.