Table white-out in landscape pages

[Stan The Man]

In Word 2001, when I place a table of say 8 x 3cm columns x 12 rows in
an A4 landscape page, ie 29.7cm wide x 21cm high (whether A4 rotated or
a new custom page), the right hand section of the table grid is
invisible. Actually, what I see is maybe 5 and a bit columns and the
rest doesn't show, even though the table markers are showing in the
right place.

I've tried all manner of alternative table and grid settings but it's
as if Word is only willing to write in an A4 portrait space and just
doesn't want to display anything further to the right than 21cm.

Could anyone please put me straight? TIA.

Stan

 

[Stan The Man]

Sorry to be a pain but it would be helpful even to know that this is a
known and incurable problem - or that no-one has ever heard of it
before. TIA.

Stan

 

[Clive Huggan]

Stan,

I don't know if this is a known problem. I saw your query and hadn't
experienced it before, and was looking forward to an expert enlightening me
too. But in view of the wait, you may have to put up with *my* expert [ex =
has-been, spurt = drip under pressure] pseudo-solution!

I tried to replicate your fault in Word 2001 (A4, landscape, width resulting
about 23cm after margins deducted from page size) and didn't have a problem
-- which isn't much help in diagnosing yours!

How about this for an approach, though -- or have you tried it?

1. Set up an 8-column table in portrait page layout (which I'm assuming
doesn't give you a problem).

2. Copy it into a landscape page and adjust the column widths to the wider
page dimension, using the "equalize columns" feature in the Table menu if
necessary.

3. If that works and you need to do this often, set up an AutoText entry to
insert a table with this exact formatting in future. In my own work, I've
produced entries for tables respectively of one to six columns to save the
time involved in doing this via the menus. The result is a huge saving
against the time otherwise taken to format a table via Table menu -> Insert
-> Table. You can find detailed notes on the way I do this if you download
"Bend Word to your Will", at
www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/WordMac/Bend/BendWord.htm (do a Find command for
"1ch" and you'll go straight to the item).

I use these pre-formatted tables so much now that I can't remember when I
last formatted one from scratch before I did the one to try to replicate
your problem. I just type 3 characters for the AutoText entry, select them,
Command-Option-v, and the specific table appears, formatted with spacing,
line weight, text style etc as I need! (I limit these tables to 2 rows,
since it's so easy to tab to the number of rows I need on any occasion).

I hope this provides you with a work-around -- post back and let us know.

-- Clive Huggan
Canberra, Australia

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============================================================

 

[Stan The Man]

(snip)

I tried to replicate your fault in Word 2001 (A4, landscape, width resulting
about 23cm after margins deducted from page size) and didn't have a problem
-- which isn't much help in diagnosing yours!

(snip)

Clive, thanks for your thoughts. You prompted me to take another look
at my setup and I found that the problem was only occuring on all my
custom templates. In other words, a new document from the File/New
blank document command did not exhibit the problem.

Turns out that all my custom docs are formatted as UK A4 (210x297mm)
whereas the Normal template and consequently all new blank docs are
formated to US A4 size. When I changed the Normal to UK A4 dimensions
and resaved all my custom templates the problem went away.

I should have checked the Normal template a long time ago.

Stan

 

[Clive Huggan]

Good to hear you solved it, Stan! I often find that I can't get past a block
until I've heard myself talk it through with a colleague.

When you have time, consider the AutoText possibilities too -- uniformity of
formatting and much time-saving can result.

--Clive