wRap those words

March 18, 2006 9:43 AM

MS Word XP: How do I force text to wrap to the next cell in table?

For example:


I want the text to break like the green text into the next cell, I don't want it to wrap into current cell like the red text.

posted by the giant pill to Computers & Internet (15 answers total)

I'm pretty sure there isn't a setting in Word that would do that for you automatically. The only ways I can think of to do that would be to hit Tab when you reach the end of a line, thus moving the cursor to the next cell, or to write a macro to do that for you.
posted by cerebus19 at 10:23 AM on March 18, 2006

Yeah, you're using the wrong tool for the task -- Word really isn't set up to do things like this.
posted by delfuego at 10:53 AM on March 18, 2006

Yeah, you're using the wrong tool for the task

To me it sounds like the wrong task. A basic rule of how tables work is that cells hold a chunk of information. Each chunk of information has some relationships with cells in the same column, and a different relationship with cells in the same row.

I suspect the least evil way to go about this is to select both cells and merge them together.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 11:07 AM on March 18, 2006

Response by poster: I'm pretty sure that Open Offices word processor can do this (via the automatic line break), I would have thought that MS word could do it as well. I'm using this for forms that my company made. I wish I could find something better to use then word.
posted by the giant pill at 11:11 AM on March 18, 2006

TGP, as others have already observed, you have a conceptual misunderstanding of what a table cell is and what it does. I work extensively with both programs, and Open Office Writer's cells work in essentially the same way as Word's; they are containers for chunks of text, and text wraps inside them automatically. (HTML tables work much the same way too, incidentally.)

The only way to make your desired behavior happen will be to force it manually: cut the text at your desired breakpoint and paste it into the cell underneath.

Why do you want your text to wrap into a new cell, anyway? If you'll explain what you're trying to accomplish, someone may be able to suggest an alternative strategy or a better tool.
posted by enrevanche at 11:45 AM on March 18, 2006

This request seems very counter-intuitive. I agree that there's no way to do this except manually. But why would you want to do this?

...and as a general rule, I find it easier to set up my tables in excel and then just edit/paste it into a word document to add any final editing. But that's just me. :)
posted by bim at 12:05 PM on March 18, 2006

Response by poster: Basically there are reports that are done for my company and tables are used to make it look pretty.

I understand that this is not how tables are meant to be used, however I didn't design the forms. I am just paid to use them. (I have over 300 of these forms that I edit week to week) Part of using them according to bosses requirements is that each cell contain only one line of text -- the sentences are to be continued on the cell below that.

I'm tired of cutting and pasting manually - it slows my typing down - I was just trying to figure out if there was a way to do it.
posted by the giant pill at 12:16 PM on March 18, 2006

Can you fake a table delimiter using a horizontal line via word art?
posted by aberrant at 12:22 PM on March 18, 2006

Best answer: Use text boxes instead:

Create a text box. Fill it with text.
Create another text box, then right-click the first text box, and select "Create text box link".
Then, select the second text box.
Text from the first box will now flow to the next text box.
Experiment with text boxes in a test document. Create them, delete the "canvas" that Word inserts, remove its borders, etc. until you are comfortable with text boxes.

Now let's play. Create a table. Size the cells the way you want them. Insert a text box into a cell. Remove its borders. Create a text box in the next cell, and remove its borders. Create the text link, as above. Voila, text flows from one cell to the next in the table.

It's a hack but it works.
posted by disclaimer at 12:25 PM on March 18, 2006

Edit: Note that even as Word inserts a canvas when you insert a text box, you can safely create the box outside the borders of the canvas, and then delete it.
posted by disclaimer at 12:27 PM on March 18, 2006

Response by poster: the table layout would look something like this:



posted by the giant pill at 12:27 PM on March 18, 2006

Response by poster: er, Project 2 should be up a cell.
posted by the giant pill at 12:37 PM on March 18, 2006

Response by poster: that's a great idea disclaimer.

However it wouldn't work for me, because from week to week the number of sentences would change. Sometimes they would need to wrap and sometimes they wouldn't.

You can't write in a linked text box that doesn't have the first text box filled up... I may be doing it wrong, but this is what it seems like to me.
posted by the giant pill at 12:40 PM on March 18, 2006

Response by poster: It looks like I am just going to have to get used to it, and that's ok. I get good karma for dealing with this kinda crap.

I probably should convert these forms to pdf forms or something like that.
posted by the giant pill at 1:02 PM on March 18, 2006

Looks to me like Project 1 and its associated comments should be one row of a table, and Project 2 and its comments should be the next row, with text wrapping within the righthand cell of each table row.

Is your boss truly committed to covering his forms with eye-destroying single-spaced horizontal lines?
posted by flabdablet at 12:37 AM on March 19, 2006