Microsoft Word 2016 Tutorial - Designing and Formatting A Word Table

In our previous Microsoft Word
Tutorial videos, we had learned that how you can Insert a new table, or draw a
table, and even how you can convert simple text into table. In this video, you
will learn that how you can quickly design and format your table, and spice the
table up.

Sometimes, when getting late for an
office meeting, you may require to quickly format and design your table, so you
may present it on the desk. This is when the Design tab under Table Tools comes
to handy. By default, when you insert a new table in a Word document, the
default table style is Table Grid, with a dark black lines for your entire
table. But Word gives you many more predefined table styles to choose from.
Place your cursor inside the table, and if you hover your mouse over these
Table Styles, you can instantly see a live preview in your document. If you
click the drop down button, then you can see a vast list of ready made table
styles. You can pick any table style that you want. Let’s say, for this example
I choose, Grid Table 4 – Accent 5. As you can see that, in a blink of eye, your
entire table has been redesigned automatically.

But you may want to customize this
table a bit, according to your preferences. As you can see, there are a few
more options under Table Style options. For this table style, Header Row,
Banded Rows and First Column options are pre-checked. Let’s see what these
options does. If your current table contains a Header Row, like I have in this
table, Crumbs and Prices Per Bag, then you might want a different color and
style for your header row, and this is what exactly the Header Row under Table
Styles option does. It fills an extra dark color in your header row, so it may
look slightly a bit different from other rows. If your table does not contain
any headings, then you may uncheck this option.

If the last row of your table contain
a total sum of values, then you may like to give it a separate formatting. So
as I check the Total Row option, you can see that the last row has been
separated by applying a double border.

Then we have Banded Rows option. As
you can see in the following table that, each second row has a slightly darker
color than others, and this is what the Banded Row options does. If you uncheck
this option, all the rows will have the same formatting. I like the Banded
Rows, so I will remain it checked. This also goes with the Banded Columns
option. If your table consist of more than two columns, then you can experiment
with Banded Columns as well, which automatically fills the color in every
second column of your table.

As the First Column option is checked
by default, and what it does is, it makes the contents in the first column
darker by automatically applying the Bold command, and the same does the Last
Column option, which also applies Bold command to the contents of your last
column.

So, this is how you can customize the
table after using a predefined table style, and it is up to you that how you
want to format your table.

If you want to experiment with the
filled color, then you have the Shading Option in Design tab. It let you
customize fill color in rows and columns according to your preference. Like, if
I click the drop down button and choose a lighter blue color, then it will
instantly apply to the current selected cells. Do note that, the Shading
applies to the selected area only. So you must first select those contents to
whom you want to apply the shading, and that could be a single row, or a single
column, or you can apply shading to the entire table by selecting it from the four
side arrow button. But if you fill the entire table with a single color, then
Table Style Options will no longer be effective, as you will lose Banded Row,
First Column, Total Row, other styles.

If you want to customize the borders
of your table, then you can do this by clicking the Border Style drop down
button. The default selected border style is, Solid Line style, but you can go
for other styles, like for a more depth line or a double line border. As I
select a double line border style, you can see that the Border Painter button
has automatically been selected, and now when I move the mouse pointer inside
the document, you can see that, it has changed to pencil style. Now, draw the
lines over the borders that you want to change. You can have different border
styles for different lines. You can even customize the border color by clicking
on Pen Color. You can also customize the Line Style and Line Width before
applying the border, and then nicely draw it over the current borders.

You can also add or remove borders
from the Borders button. Like, if I want to remove the borders from entire
table, then first I select the entire table, and then click No Borders from the
Borders drop down menu. You can even apply border to a specific selected area.

We will cover border customization
options in much detail in our next lesson. Leave us your suggestions and comments in the box below.