I have 2003 Word student & teacher edition. I am creating a table and i was
going along just fine until I attempted to copy and past a section into
another section. Then all hell broke loose. All the work I had done on the
document was changed. it made the table margin about 4" wider than I wanted
it. The cells and columns chaned their own widths and margins. I attempted to
fix it and after a few minutes, it would revert back to what it was.

I got 2 replies earlier today to right click Tables-Properties-and uncheck
"resize to fit contents." On my version, I left click Tables, go to table
properties-cell-options. It was not checked, so that solution didn't work,
but thanks for the idea!

I found a section that said "reveal formatting" and when I checked it out,
it had 3 areas "prefered cell width," "preferred table width" and "preferred
cell margins." I do not want "preferred" settings.It would not let me disable
these settings. I want to set the cells and margins that I need for each
section as I create the document. Can you help me disable these settings and
tailor it to the way I need to use it?