Getting Rid of Trailing Spaces in Table Cells

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated January 13, 2024)
This tip applies to Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021, and Word in Microsoft 365

Randy works with tables regularly in his documents. It is not uncommon for cells in a table to have trailing spaces. Randy wonders if there is a way to find and delete any trailing spaces in a table.

Perhaps the easiest way to get rid of trailing spaces in table cells is to follow these steps:

Select the cells within the table that you want to affect.
Press Ctrl+E. Word centers all the text in the table cells and, at the same time, removes any trailing spaces.
Press Ctrl+L. Word now aligns all your text at the left of the cell.

This process sounds simple, but there are a couple of caveats to keep in mind. First of all, you cannot select the entire table in step 1. If you do so, then Ctrl+E (step 2) centers the table, not the contents of the cells within the table. If you want to get rid of trailing spaces in all cells, then make sure you select just the cells and not the end-of-row markers that appear to the right of the rightmost column in the table.

Another caveat is to understand that if you are using styles for the text within the table, these steps can mess up those styles because you are applying explicit formatting (centering and then left justifying) over the top of whatever the style may specify for the text. So, if you are using styles, you may want to press Ctrl+Q instead of Ctrl+L in step 3. This returns the paragraph formatting within the table to whatever is appropriate for the styles that are applied to the text in the table.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (9994) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021, and Word in Microsoft 365.

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...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Using the Drawing Grid

One of the lesser-known drawing tools provided in Word is the drawing grid. You can easily turn this feature on and use ...

Discover More

Delimited Text-to-Columns in a Macro

The Text-to-Columns tool is an extremely powerful feature that allows you to divide data in a variety of ways. Excel even ...

Discover More

Setting Consistent Column Widths in Multiple Tables

Tables are great for organizing and presenting information in a document. If you have a document containing multiple ...

Discover More

Do More in Less Time! An easy-to-understand guide to the more advanced features available in the Microsoft 365 version of Word. Enhance the quality of your documents and boost productivity in any field with this in-depth resource. Complete your Word-related tasks more efficiently as you unlock lesser-known tools and learn to quickly access the features you need. Check out Microsoft 365 Word For Professionals For Dummies today!

More WordTips (ribbon)

Creating and Using Standardized Tables

If you have a common table layout that you want to use again and again, you'd benefit by having an easy way to save that ...

Discover More

Copying All Tables to a New Document

Need to make a copy of every single table in a document? There's a quick and easy way to do it using the macro in this tip.

Discover More

Centering a Table

Left-justified tables are great for many document designs, but you may want instead to center a table between the margins ...

Discover More

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in WordTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

View most recent newsletter.

Comments

If you would like to add an image to your comment (not an avatar, but an image to help in making the point of your comment), include the characters [{fig}] (all 7 characters, in the sequence shown) in your comment text. You’ll be prompted to upload your image when you submit the comment. Maximum image size is 6Mpixels. Images larger than 600px wide or 1000px tall will be reduced. Up to three images may be included in a comment. All images are subject to review. Commenting privileges may be curtailed if inappropriate images are posted.

Notify me about new comments ONLY FOR THIS TIP

Notify me about new comments ANYWHERE ON THIS SITE

Hide my email address

What is 5 - 0?

2024-01-13 10:51:19

Ann Olmsted

Thank you! I've been looking for a simple way to remove those trailing spaces quickly for a very long time.

This Site

Got a version of Word that uses the ribbon interface (Word 2007 or later)? This site is for you! If you use an earlier version of Word, visit our WordTips site focusing on the menu interface.