You can easily join tables in Word by simply removing the paragraphs that originally separated the tables. However, this may present a problem if the tables had different numbers of columns or if the column widths in each table were different. There are many different ways you can approach this problem, most of which involve some sort of repetitious activity that can get very tiring if you have many columns in the table.
One quick solution to this problem is to allow Word to do the formatting for the columns. To do this, you follow these steps:
At this point you can make any additional changes you want to the widths of the columns.
The problem with the methods discussed so far is that you still may not end up with the column widths you want. After all, you are leaving the widths up to Word, and that may not produce the best results for your needs. More often, you may want the joined tables to assume the column widths already set in the first table. In this case, the following method will work great. Just make sure you do these steps before you join the two tables:
If you followed these steps precisely, Word will have pasted the information at the end of the table, inserting rows as necessary. In addition, the columns are the same width as the other columns in the first table. You can then delete the second table since it is no longer needed.
WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (9924) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and Word in Office 365. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Word here: Adjusting Column Widths on Joined Tables.
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2015-06-08 08:54:41
Jennifer Thomas
As someone with considerable experience fixing corrupt tables in legal documents, I endorse Rod Grealish's method of converting to table to text and back again.
If table merging is done incorrectly, it is very easy to get two tables looking like one table without actually merging them, and this causes a variety of issues as the documents evolve.
The 'best' way is really to use your table select and paste options correctly, but for the less experienced user, Rod's way will spare you a lot of tears.
2015-06-06 15:07:57
Rod Grealish
I find it easier to convert the merged table to text and the convert the text back into a table. This gets rid of many oddities.
2015-06-06 09:59:39
Maryland, USA
I don't think this tip will work if the second table contains fewer either by design or because cells have been merged or split.
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