Fix my MS Word table!

July 15, 2005 2:33 PM

How can I get the cells in my MS Word table to "stick together"? It keeps putting page breaks in weird places, leaving a single cell stranded at the top of a page.

It seems like only some of the cells are infected with this standoffishness--most of them flow together just fine.
Does anyone have a clue how to fix this? I am spending way too much time trying to figure this out and am on the verge of doing something desperate.

posted by exceptinsects to technology (7 comments total)

Okay, am I completely losing my mind, or is there now a big space right after my question?
Is it contagious?
posted by exceptinsects at 3:00 PM on July 15, 2005

Table > Properties > Row > [uncheck] "Allow Row to Break Across Pages". Unless that's not what you mean. Can you put a screenshot somewhere?

P.S. your question looks fine.
posted by matildaben at 3:28 PM on July 15, 2005

Okay, let's see if this works--a (not very good, but I think you can see well enough) screenshot should be here.
I don't really want the rows to break across the pages, but even if I do that it still leaves all this blank space where (hopefully) you can see that the next row should easily fit on the same page but for some reason is pushed to the next one.
posted by exceptinsects at 4:18 PM on July 15, 2005

Two suggestions: select the row after the gap and go to Format > Paragraph > Line and Page Breaks and make sure neither "Keep with Next" nor "Keep Lines together" is checked.

That probably isn't the problem, though.

Now I'd suggest you split the table: Table> Split table. Right now you're probably dealing with one huge table and Word is arbitrarily deciding where to break it. Smaller tables will at least give you more flexibility.

Good luck.
posted by C.C. Ryder at 4:58 PM on July 15, 2005

Yeah, all I can think of is what C.C.R. said. What happens if you decrease your top/bottom margins, does it eventually fit?
posted by matildaben at 6:02 PM on July 15, 2005

I think C.C. Ryder and matildaben are on the right track.

Save a copy of the document and experiment on it a bit. What happens if you change the text in the rows after the gap to just plain text? If that allows the table to flow correctly, that would be a clear indication of an issue with the paragraph formatting in one of the rows following the gap. If you are using built-in styles, you probably have widows/orphans controls turned on for the paragraph, which causes problems like these sometimes too.

It could also be the way the graphics are inserted, as inserted graphics in tables sometimes causes text to move in unexpected ways, at least in my experience. What happens if you remove the graphics in the rows after the gap?
posted by gemmy at 10:46 PM on July 15, 2005

AHA.

It was in fact the widows/orphans control thing.

Thank you all for your help, you have saved my brain from exploding and my computer from extreme violence.
posted by exceptinsects at 8:58 AM on July 18, 2005