Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Word versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and Word in Microsoft 365. 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: Expanding Width of All Tables.

Expanding Width of All Tables

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated July 3, 2023)
This tip applies to Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and Word in Microsoft 365

If you have a document that contains quite a few tables, you may be searching for a way to modify the width of all the tables in the document. For instance, your company standards may require that all tables be the same width, extending from the left to the right margin. If you have forty or more tables in a document, modifying the width of them all, individually, can be very tedious.

The following macro, ResizeAllTables, will quickly do what it says—resize all tables. The widths of the tables are adjusted to fill the available margins.

Sub ResizeAllTables()
    Dim oTbl As Table
    For Each oTbl In ActiveDocument.Tables
        oTbl.AutoFitBehavior wdAutoFitFixed
        With ActiveDocument.PageSetup
            oTbl.PreferredWidth = .PageWidth - .LeftMargin - .RightMargin
        End With
    Next oTbl
End Sub

After the macro is complete, you should still examine each table to make sure that your column widths are appropriate for your data, but the overall width of the tables will be as you expected.

Note:

If you would like to know how to use the macros described on this page (or on any other page on the WordTips sites), I've prepared a special page that includes helpful information. Click here to open that special page in a new browser tab.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (11487) 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: Expanding Width of All Tables.

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

Enforcing a Desired Font

If your workbooks are shared and used by a number of different people, you may end up with some formatting in those ...

Discover More

Turning Off Automatic Capitalization

Type some information into a worksheet, and you may notice that Excel automatically capitalizes some of your information. ...

Discover More

Find and Replace in a Column or Row

Need to search for information in a table? Word allows you to easily limit your search to an entire column or row, as ...

Discover More

The First and Last Word on Word! Bestselling For Dummies author Dan Gookin puts his usual fun and friendly candor back to work to show you how to navigate Word 2013. Spend more time working and less time trying to figure it all out! Check out Word 2013 For Dummies today!

More WordTips (ribbon)

Converting a Table into Text

Word includes a powerful table editor that allows you to create and work with tables easily. At some point, however, you ...

Discover More

Transposing Table Contents

When you transpose information, it is essentially "rotated" in a direction. If you transpose the information in a table, ...

Discover More

Working with Table Columns and Rows

Need to add or delete columns and rows from a table? It's easy to do using the tools provided in Word.

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 five less than 7?

There are currently no comments for this tip. (Be the first to leave your comment—just use the simple form above!)

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.