MS Word: Fitting a table onto a page without jumping throuh hoops

[Johnny_L.A]

@Knowed_Out

Tables are rarely used on the web anymore. They’ve been replaced with div tags in HTML 5, and their formatting is defined under CSS. When you copy, Word isn’t copying those styles. It defaults to its own table style, which isn’t necessarily what you want.

I assume it’s a table, because it has cells that I can move the borders on. I was going to look at the source code for the page, but Edge doesn’t have ‘View source’ like Safari does.

@Knowed_Out

Your other option is to take a screenshot with the Snipping Tool (if you’re using Windows 10) and paste the table as an image. You won’t be able to do any editing though.

I tried that. The image comes out too small unless I scrunch the browser window and then expand it again when I’m done. (I can also make the table fit by scrunching the browser window.) But at that point it’s easier to jump through all of the hoops I’ve posted.

[SmellMyWort]

Highlight the table, select Table Properties, and under the Table tab, click the box to align the table to the right. The left half of the table should now be cut off instead of the right, which gives you access to the table size adjustment thingy in the bottom right corner of the table.

[Knowed_Out]

@Johnny_L.A

I assume it’s a table, because it has cells that I can move the borders on. I was going to look at the source code for the page, but Edge doesn’t have ‘View source’ like Safari does.

It’s div tags made to look like a table. Divs can be used for a lot of other things, which is why HTML5 incorporated them.

The HTML for a table using div tags looks something like this:

<div class=“divTable” style=“width: 75%;border: 1px solid #000;” >
<div class=“divTableBody”>
<div class=“divTableRow”>
<div class=“divTableCell”> </div>
<div class=“divTableCell”> </div>
<div class=“divTableCell”> </div> etc

Those class definitions link to the style sheet, like so:

.divTable{
display: table;
width: 100%;
}
.divTableRow {
display: table-row;
}
etc

In the old days, tables were coded like this in HTML:

<table style=“width: 75%;” border=“1”>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
<td> </td>
</tr> etc

A lot simpler, which is why Word was able to paste with just ctrl-v before. However, new HTML editors use the div method nowadays. Word can’t copy the CSS unless you save the HTML in a word doc and make the CSS your style template. That’s way too much trouble for your purposes.