Tables, Columns, and Text Boxes

Tables are a great tool for positioning data precisely in your documents without resorting to such horrors as groups of text boxes. Tables mostly behave pretty well, provided that you know what you're doing with them but their complexities and occasional out habits can be extremely annoying.

In this tutorial, you'll learn how to quell these various annoyances. We'll look at how to decide whether to use Word's fancy drawing features for tables; how to position tables and their contents exactly where you want them and prevent Word from adjusting column widths without your consent; how to use header rows, borders, and formulae; and many other table-related issues.

Compared with tables, columns and text boxes provide more moderate levels of annoyance but the end of the tutorial shows you how to deal with the curve balls these features can throw at you.