Word's table mechanism can be hell on wheels sometimes. To be fair, there
are LOTS of variables, apart from column width, that can be throwing things
out of kilter (such as the padding for the table as a whole, and for the
cells). Plus any number of strange things can happen if there has been
splitting and merging of cells. (Eg, you merge cells 2 and 3, then split
cell 4 -- which cell is in column 3?)

Suggest you might be better off, rather than trying to fix the tables, is to
copy the content into new ones, or convert to text then back to table and
apply a table style.



"Dena" wrote in message
news
Dear Friends,

I need your help. I searched and was unable to find the help I need. I
also am a "supposed" Word expert -- but can not seem to fix this problem
without alot of manual work (which seems unnecessary - there must be a
faster/easier way).

The problem -- I have a document which is composed of many tables.
Different parts of the tables were done by different people -- and thus
even
though a template was provided the final product contains columns of
different widths.

I cut and paste the pieces together and then find that my table has
different cells with different widths (due to being worked on by different
persons) - meaning that for example the first few cells of a column are
one
size and the next fews cells under that are another size. When I go to
table
properties and column width and select the size -- the cells change but
the
lines of the table do not even up (the unalignment of the cells in the
column
remains).

And, sometimes (can't figure out why) -- when I select multiple columns
and
chose one size for all -- they do not all come out the same size! Even
though table properties says a column is a certain size it is not (or at
least its not visually the same size as its neighbor column).

I would think that there must be a way to select a column and if there are
cells within it that are offskew/or misaligned -- that it would even it up
for you. I have been trying to move the lines of the table manually but
seem
to have trouble getting it exact (I use Ctrl Alt Shift) -- and the look is
unprofessional. Also if you select many columns and give one width that
they
all should BE that width.

Also if I want the tables to be the same size throughout the document -- I
usually copy down what it says in the table properties per column and then
apply to the new table -- however it does not apply accurately and the
tables
are not the same!

I hope you can understand what I am refering to. There is nothing in Help
on this --and it seems to me that this should be an obvious formatting
option
in Word. I just want my columns to line up and the column widths to be
accurate.

Can any one help.

Thank you very much,
DENA