how to custom-fit cell size for each cell? (and stop the tyranny of the rows)

[willem]

Hi,
I'm trying to get a lot of info on a single page with a 5x5 table.
What's thwarting me is that I've got a lot of white space, because
Word is sizing all cell height based on the biggest tallest cell in
the row -- ex, I have 4 of the cells in a row with only 3 lines of
text, but the last one has 15 lines of text, so all the cells in the
row are the same height as the tallest, and a lot of wasted space is
created. What I want is for Word to auto-resize the cell height on a
per-cell basis, not a per-row basis.

is that too much to ask?

Hope I made myself clear, I searched for help info but couldn't see
any.

Thanks,
W.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Can't be done, but you can split the cells vertically.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://www.mvps.org/word
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

 

[willem]

thanks for the info. I guess either I'm not sophisticated enough to
appreciate just how complex my requirement is

or,

its ridiculous that Word can't do that.

 

[Klaus Linke]

thanks for the info. I guess either I'm not sophisticated enough
to appreciate just how complex my requirement is

or,

its ridiculous that Word can't do that.

Hi Willem,

Have you tried "Table > AutoFit > AutoFit to contents"?
It would make the last colums wider than the others.

If it does work, you might reset it to "Table > AutoFit > Fixed column
width" afterwards.
Else, Word will continue to try adjusting the column widths to the current
content, which may slow it down a bit.

Greetings,
Klaus

 

[willem]

in the end, I simply used used the "columns" function, not a table at
all. then is was just a matter of spacing things out to look nice. My
experiments with the "autofit" didn't achieve the desired effect.

I'm still in shock that such a long-standing Microsoft program as Word
can't do what I consider to be a simple task. perhaps they could send
some of their .net programmers over to the Office office.

 

[JGM]

Hi Willem,

I am not one for defending M$, but...

I do not think it is a simple programming issue (even if you call it a
simple task!).
In over 15 years of tinkering with computers (Mac, IBM, O/S 2, Unix...) I
have never seen that feature...
Not just within M$ products, like Word, Excel or Power Point, but also with
other famous ones, like Lotus 1 2 3, Corel Suite, Quark Express,
Illustrator, Open Office, and even the almighty Word Perfect may no do that
(I do not remember that particular feature in Word Perfect, but I must admit
that I have not used WP extensively...)!

So if the most popular softwares do nt offer that featurs.... it must be for
a reason! I bet it would be a nightmare to code text alignement on the
page...

Just my 2 cents...

Have a great day!

Cheers!