Main Area and Open Discussion > General Software Discussion
Word 2007: Are Table Styles safe to use now?
Target:
I have to ask why Tables are so "fundamental"? One thing that annoys me to no end, as an IT guy AND a printer, is people using the wrong tool for the job just because they are comfortable in that environment. Now I know you are willing to stretch, but many are not. TABLES ARE BAD,BAD,BAD! (In Word). Word is meant to be a word processor, not a spreadsheet. If you are just formatting a report, that is one thing, that is what tab stops are for, but if you want form filled tables, then it is really the wrong tool. Microsoft adds these features because of requests, but that doesn't mean they SHOULD be added. Excel is designed around tables and should be used for that purpose. I only miss the Binder tool Microsoft used to have that allowed you to combine pages from tools like Word and Excel into a single manuscript.</rant>
Now back to the original program....
Why would you need tables in your Word document?
-steeladept (May 26, 2010, 07:33 PM)
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interesting, but what makes them so bad?
I have no qualifications here, I'm just an interested observer, but I'm not aware of any reason not use tables in a document (aside from the potential stability issues referred to above).
Tables are a well understood means of segregating and organising content, and most people will find them logical/natural to read. They are not spreadsheets (I suspect anyone trying to use one like that will work that out pretty quickly)
Provided they are used sensibly and in context they're a useful tool (same as tabs, and bulleting, and, and, and...)
FYI, the OP is producing a large procedural document, so I don't believe there is any form filling involved
AndyM:
Why would you need tables in your Word document?
-steeladept (May 26, 2010, 07:33 PM)
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among other reasons, easiest way to do certain kinds of underlining. also handy for forms, both printed and fill-in-the-blanks. Unless you are using VBA to do forms in Excel (powerful but much more to learn), Word is much handier for fill in the blank stuff. Without using tables it's almost impossible to keep variable length fields from changing your line-length and therefore your pagination.
Word tables can be handy for entering data or for composing/designing when you know you will have some kind of row/column setup but not sure what the final layout will be. The kind of thing I have in mind would be tedious using tabs (which most definitely have their place - tables aren't always the best tool).
Generally it's easier to line things up with a table than with tabs. Except when it's not.
(Word 2002) I've always found Table Styles to be useless, so I've never used them enough to cause the formatting problems cited in the excerpt from superboyac's post.
As far as the other things it says not to do because they lead to instability, I've already learned not to do them, but not due to instability problems. Some of the things he talks about (tables within tables, merging or splitting cells) I don't do because they don't turn out to be useful, don't work well enough to be useful, or make things tougher (eg merged cells make selecting rows/columns and a few other things difficult).
I've never had instability problems using tables, but my tables are seldom complicated, and rarely more than a few pages.
If you are talking about a generic table (rows and columns), sometimes Word is better, sometimes Excel is better. Word is usually much better if there's much text and fancy formatting, Excel if the numeric formulas are anything more than really simple (try copying a calculated field formula with cell references down a column in Word).
If I'm importing rows and columns of data that I'm ultimately going to put in Word, sometimes it's easier to first import the data into Excel, do some massaging/formatting and then copy it to Word where it automatically turns into a table, and then finish the massaging and formatting. This is because some things are easier in Excel than Word and the reverse.
Holy crap:
Do Not Use Tables!!-superboyac (May 26, 2010, 05:37 PM)
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interesting, but what did you do? Was it a massive table? did it have some sort of complex styling going on?
-Target (May 26, 2010, 05:56 PM)
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Yeah, what did you do? ;)
superboyac:
If I'm importing rows and columns of data that I'm ultimately going to put in Word, sometimes it's easier to first import the data into Excel, do some massaging/formatting and then copy it to Word where it automatically turns into a table, and then finish the massaging and formatting. This is because some things are easier in Excel than Word and the reverse.
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Yes, i may have to do this, it sounds easier. I'm trying to make a glossary. Nothing fancy, but there is formatting involved. two columns, bold words, normal definitions, headers are formatted. But there are a lot of items. I already have all the words and definitions in InfoQube, so I want an easy way to bring it into Word. So when I did at first, I copied and pasted, then adjusted some stuff, removed some rows, appleid some styles. That's when it all broke. So now, I'm going to try the Excel method.
kfitting:
... If you are just formatting a report, that is one thing, that is what tab stops are for, ...
-steeladept (May 26, 2010, 07:33 PM)
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Since my answer would be formatting "things" I'm very interested in how tabstops can be used to create a multi-column (say 10) table. How is this done?
AndyM:
You set the nine tabstops (for ten columns) for the first row at the top (the ruler thing), or set them in the tab settings dialog, spaced the way you want.
You enter data across, inserting a tab to jump to the next column. When you get to the end of the row, you hit enter, which ends the single-line paragraph and starts a new paragraph with the identical tabstops already there. Enter the next row.
If you already have some kind of delimited data, you replace the delimiters with tabs if necessary and paste the data instead of typing it in.
Since each line is a paragraph (it's handy to show the formatting marks - ShowAll, the pilcrow symbol - to see the tabs and the endparagraph marks), you set the space before/after each line to zero in Paragraph settings.
There are several different types of tabstops (right/left aligned, center, decimal). Btw, the way to make things line up by decimal in a table is to use decimal tabstops.
You can create a style from your 10-column paragraph, and any time you apply it to a line with 9 tabs it will look the same.
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