UNHCE Information Technology & Distance Education Blog

RESIZING COLUMNS

By selecting any cell in a table, you can, of course, drag the big blocks in the ruler to the left or right to change the column widths.

Here are some mouse/keyboard shortcuts you may also want to try.
1. Press Alt and drag the right border of a column and the column won't snap to a point on the ruler. That is, when you move the column border, it doesn't automatically snap to a division on the ruler (such as 1/10 of an inch). Note that as you resize the selected column, the column to its immediate right is also changed by a like amount, in the opposite direction. (Thus, if you make the selected cell smaller, the cell to its right is made larger.) Also note that you'll be able to precisely size the column width: the ruler shows the exact width of each column.
2. Press Shift as you click and drag the right border of a column to resize only the selected column. If you make the column smaller (larger), the table as a whole becomes narrower (wider). (If you also press Alt at the same time, you can precisely position the column width -- the ruler shows each column's dimension.)
3. Press Ctrl and drag the right border of a column to resize the selected column and resize all columns to the right of that column by the same amount. If you make the column smaller by a quarter of an inch, for example, all columns to the right are made narrower by a quarter of an inch. (If you also press Alt at the same time, you can precisely position the column width -- the ruler shows each column's dimension.)
4. Press Ctrl + Shift and drag the column's right border and the column's width is changed. All cells to the right of the selected cells are automatically resized so they are all the same width. (That is, the space to the right of the selected column is apportioned evenly among the remaining columns.) (If you also press Alt at the same time, you can precisely position the column width -- the ruler shows each column's dimension.)

To make all columns the same size, select the entire table (or just select the columns you want to be the same width). Choose Table/AutoFit, then Distribute Columns Evenly. Note: Only those rows selected will be affected. Therefore, to change all cells in all columns in a table, be sure you first select the entire table.
RESIZING ROWS

Click on and drag the bottom border of any row to resize it. There are no shortcuts for resizing rows above or below the current row, as there are for resizing columns.

*Excel does provide a command to automatically resize all row heights to the same size: select at least one cell in each of the rows you want to change, then use the Table/AutoFit command from the main menu, then Distribute Rows Evenly. The total height of all selected rows will be divided evenly among the selected rows.

SELECTING CELLS

Select a cell: Move to the cell (or click on it), then Ctrl + Left click on it, or double-click on it. Note: if the cell is not the contents; for instance, the cell contains left-aligned text "abc", you must click anywhere on those letters within the cell. Clicking to the right of the text (the blank area of the cell) selects nothing.

Select a column: Alt + click any cell in the desired column. If you drag the mouse to the left or right, you'll select multiple contiguous columns. (You don't have to hold down the Alt key as you drag the mouse.)

Select a table: Select any cell. Excel displays a box icon in the upper-left corner of the table with a four-headed arrow inside. Click once on this box icon to select the entire table. Click the four-headed box icon again and Word opens the Table Properties dialog box. *Note: You can also hold down Alt and double-click any cell in the table. However, I've always had mixed results with this shortcut.

UNDOCUMENTED CELL FORMATTING SHORTCUT

Double-click in the center of an empty cell to change the alignment to Center (from Left).

ADDING AUTOMATIC ROW NUMBERS

To add automatically updated row numbers to a table, select the cells where you want the numbers (that's usually the leftmost column. You can select the entire column or just the cells where you want the numbering. Click the Numbering button (the one with

1 --
2 --
3 --
on it) on the Formatting toolbar. If you move the row, or insert or delete a row within this row range, the row number is updated automatically.