Re-formatting tables

[Chris Benham]

Another question for you all. Hopefully this is the proper place to ask
this.

I'm currently reformatting someone's doctoral dissertation which is rife
with tables. When they created these tables, they simply created the
number of columns they needed, but only one row.

What I'm trying to do is break the tables into the appropriate number of
columns and rows. I can do it manually, but it's VERY time consuming.
Let me give you a simple example of what I need to do:

Table 1

Variable Gen. Pop. Alert Group Total
Gender
Male 331 (84.2) 128 (68.8) 459 (79.3
Female 62 (15.8) 58 (31.2 120 (20.7)
Total 393 (67.9) 186 (32.1) 579 (100.0)

As I said, this is 4 coumns, 1 row. This is what it needs to be:

Table 1

Variable Gen. Pop. Alert Group Total
Num. % Num. % Num. %
Gender
Male 331 84.2 128 68.8 459 79.3
Female 62 15.8 58 31.2 120 20.7
Total 393 67.9 186 32.1 579 100.0

In the second example, I would like each column of numbers to be
seperate, and each row to be seperate. I've been using the draw tables
tool to do this, but some of these tables stretch over several pages, so
if there is a quicker way to reformat these, I would dance for joy.

Thanks in advance for any responses.

Chris Benham

 

[jesse]

Chris,

Word has a Text to Table conversion utility that can work
for you, but will require a bit of work on your part too.
The conversion utility is capable of creating a column
whereever it sees a comma, tab, hard break, or other
character you stipulate. Go thru the text and place one of
these characters where you want each column to begin. Then
use...

Table | Covert | Text to Table: select one of the options,
comma, paragraphs, tabs, etc.

jesse

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

I would convert the table to text, then back to a table. It sometimes takes
a bit of trial and error but does work.

--
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.

 

[jesse]

I concur with Suzanne, that converting the table to text
and back to table is the best option. Again, keeping in
mind using commas where you want columns to begin and end.
Attempting to re-format a screwy table can be more time-
consuming and annoying that this option.

jesse

 

[Chris Benham]

Thanks for these responses. What I ended up doing was copying the table
into Excel, which handily added the majority of my needed rows.

I then copied this back into Word and covereted it to text. Using
find/replace, I deleted the close parens, and changed the open parens to
a comma. When I converted it back to a table, it was very close to my
final product, with only a few minor formatting issues.

Thanks again for your help!

Chris