2003 -- Are *very* large tables still an issue

[Lori]

We have documents that are 1 long table ranging from 3 to 5 columns but may
be 300+ rows long and a 20-30 pages. In previous version of Word I've delete
with these documents became corrupted easily as it had to reformat 20 pages
of table rows. So the resolution was to get people to put these in Excel.
At other companies not a problem.

At the place I'm at now, the issue is not only the size of the documents but
the size of the cell. Some will have 2000+ (and few quite abit more)
characters and Excel's print and display limit is around 1000 even though the
cell will hold 32,000.

We've just upgraded to Ofc 2003 and I'm wondering if large tables are still
an issue. Or if someone has a piece of software they can recommend.

 

[Klaus Linke]

Hi Lori,

Still an issue.

So break up your tables into smaller tables (and rows into smaller rows) as
much as possible.

If you format the paragraph mark between tables as hidden, you can have two
tables that look like one.
You loose functionality that way though. Say, you can no longer select
columns. And some people don't like hidden paragraph marks because they
think that they make document corruption more likely (... haven't
encountered that myself).

Another thing that may help a bit is to set the tables to a fixed width
(Table > AutoFit).
With a macro, you could do that for all tables quickly. And while you're at
it, the macro could format the tables the way you like (set column widths,
borders, ...).

Regards,
Klaus