On the Table menu, click Table Properties. Click the Table tab. Clear
the "Preferred width" option. Click Options. Clear the "Automatically
resize to fit contents" option. Specify the desired cell margins. When
you are done, click OK.

In the Table Properties dialog box, click the Column tab. Choose a
fixed unit of measurement in the "Measure in" box, and then type a
value for "Preferred width". Repeat for the other columns. (You can
use the "Next Column" and "Previous column" to select those.)

Click the Cell tab. Click Options. Under "Cell margins", make sure
that "Same as the whole table" is selected. Under "Options", select
"Wrap text" and clear "Fit text". Click OK.

Click OK to close the Table Properties dialog box.

--
Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP


"u2canbfree" wrote in message
...
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?