Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Word versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, and 2016. If you are using an earlier version (Word 2003 or earlier), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for earlier versions of Word, click here: Splitting a Table.

Splitting a Table

by Allen Wyatt
(last updated June 11, 2020)

Word provides a powerful table editor that allows you to create and modify data in tabular format. If you are working with large tables, there may be times when you need to split a table in half. To do this, follow these steps:

Position the insertion point anywhere in the row you want as the first row in the table that is split-off the larger table.
Display the Layout tab of the ribbon. (This tab is only visible if your insertion point is within a table.)
Click the Split Table tool, within the Merge group.

The result is that Word inserts a Normal-formatted paragraph prior to the table row in which your insertion point was placed. The two resulting tables can now be treated independently.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (276) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, 2013, and 2016. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Word here: Splitting a Table.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. Learn more about Allen...

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What is five minus 4?

2015-11-16 14:20:32

Jennifer Thomas

I've seen a couple of the proposed methods set the table wrap properties to Around (which causes a lot of weird issues like not being able to delete the empty paragraph mark between tables), so I recommend you always double-check the page layout for tables after you split them.

2015-11-15 18:22:57

Liz

Another shortcut is Ctrl + Shift + Enter

2015-11-15 13:49:51

Fergus Semler

I've used the 2 step method of...
1. Insert page break via CTRL-Enter
2. Backspace to delete the page break

2015-11-14 04:51:06

Trisha

When splitting a table Alt+a+t does the same thing as above, and is quicker. - I've been doing this for years now.

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