how do you append one table to another in Word 2003

[Robert Perry]

I'm having various people enter information in a table. The table is the
same for everyone. I want to combine all the tables into one master
document. I have opened one of the documents and inserted the others in as a
file but they still appear as individual tables not one table. If I want to
add a column I have to do it in each document inserted. Is there another way
to do this so that I end up with one large table?

 

[Shauna Kelly]

Hi Robert

Click the ¶ button on the toolbar (or do ctrl-Shift-8). You'll see a ¶ sign
for each paragraph. If you have two tables separated by a ¶, then delete it.
The two tables will instantly become one.

For more info about the signs, see
What do all those funny marks, like the dots between the words in my
document, and the square bullets in the left margin, mean?
http://www.word.mvps.org/FAQs/Formatting/NonPrintChars.htm

Hope this helps.

Shauna Kelly. Microsoft MVP.
http://www.shaunakelly.com/word

 

[Ed]

Alas, Word 2003 doesn't reliably append tables. I have two, seven-column
tables from different documents. I copied and pasted one into the other,
fiddled the column widths to make them match up, and removed the little
paragraph mark. The tables appeared to jam together, but didn't join. (For
example, I couold position the cursor in one or the other, click select
table, and only select one of them.)

I tried splitting the second table and re-removing the paragraph mark. No
joy. I tried converting both to text with a variety of separators, then
converting back - and got a variety of entertaining messes - but not the
combined table I was after.

Fortunately, my wife runs Word 2000. I saved the 2003 doc to her laptop,
removed the paragraph mark in 2000, saved it, ran back upstairs, opened the
doc and voila - one table!

So, there is a bug in 2003 that causes this table append to break sometimes.

Ed

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

I have experienced this, too, so I can attest that you're not making it up.
Just to be on the safe side, though, make absolutely sure that wrapping on
all the tables is set to "None" and that you have no rows selected as
heading rows in the tables after the first.

 

[Ed]

Wrapping was off (by chance) and I had turned off heading rows all around,
suspecting that it might be a problem.

So, there is a problem and a workaround. But, my wife tells me that she's
moving to 2003, so I might be back in the market for a more general fix. ...
;-)

Ed

 

[Andrew]

The best workaround I've found for this is to remove the return of course.
Then hold down the ALT key as you use the mouse to drag the column borders
into alignment. The alt key removes the snap-to feature.

 

[pj]

I too was unable to cause my two tables to combine, even using the alt key
method.

So... I added 4 or so rows to the the upper table. Then I "copied" the
data from 10 or more rows in the lower table to the upper table. The upper
table accepted the data and automatically added rows to accommodate the rows
I moved.

The "move" method I employed was to highlight the content of the rows, hold
down the "ctrl" key--and using my mouse--drag the highlighted data to column
one of new rows just added.

Hope this "work around" helps.

 

[SamLowry]

I just found what seems to be another work-around. I'm using Word 2003, but
I am able to open docx files. So I saved a troublesome (some tables failing
to combine) file as docx, closed it, and reopened it. It's a large file so
I'm not sure what happened on other pages, but the two tables I was trying to
combine are now one table.

The methods others posted weren't working for me. Trying to move data from
one table into another resulted in an "oil and water" situation -- I actually
was just causing more separate tables to exist. The way I'm determining
whether tables are separate or combined, is Table, Select Table.

To attempt to describe further: There is currently no grid set to print, and
when Gridlines are set to visible, it is easy to see exactly where these
tables are failing to combine -- that gridline looks perhaps twice the
thickness on screen.

 

[SamLowry]

My previous post didn't appear, so I'll try again.

I've noticed this same problem, where some tables simply won't join
together, and it happened again yesterday. When rows from the second table
are placed into the table above it, they act like "oil and water" and refuse
to act as the same table. I confirm this by using Table, Select Table.

The methods posted above on this topic weren't any help to me.

In an attempt to describe what I'm seeing -- in these tables there are no
Gridlines set to print. So when I have Gridlines set to visible, I can
fairly easily see the "gaps" between these misbehaving tables -- the
horizontal grid at that point looks approx. double thickness.

A workaround I found yesterday -- my Word 2003 has been upgraded to be able
to open docx files -- was to save a file as docx, then close and open it (I
don't even know if that step was necessary). The below table had changed
width which wasn't exactly ideal, but now it was part of the table above. In
the past sometimes I've solved problems with files by saving them as Word
6.0, but that often causes its own issues with complex tables.