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You may have had to transfer text in paragraph form into a table. This manual process can be automated with the help of Microsoft Word's Convert text to table feature.
How the Convert Tool Works
The convert tool will transform each line break of your text into a row of the new table. Each row will further be split into columns based on the concept of a delimiter. A delimiter is a character or section of the document that marks a specific part of the text. In this particular case, the delimiter would mark the start of a new column. Common delimiters are new paragraphs, commas, tabs, or spaces.
When the convert tool is started, it will prompt you to specify your delimiter character. For example, in the following paragraph I have chosen a blank space to be my delimiter. Therefore, the paragraph would be split into two rows and three columns as shown below. It is split into two rows because of the line break after "Jersey". It will be split into four columns because of the single spaces between each of the four words on each line.
navitend Byram New Jersey
GREENER GRASS THIS WAY
| navitend | Byram | New | Jersey |
| GREENER | GRASS | THIS | WAY |
The line in your text that contains the most delimiters will determine how many columns are in your table. Any lines that contain less delimiters will not completely fill their particular row. For example, the following text would result in the table below:
navitend
GREENER GRASS THIS WAY
| navitend | |||
| GREENER | GRASS | THIS | WAY |
How To Use the Convert Tool
Follow along with these steps to learn how to use the feature.
1. Open Microsoft Word and highlight the text you wish to convert into a table.
2. Select the Insert tab and choose Convert Text to Table... from the Table dropdown.
3. The following window will appear. Is is okay to leave the Table size and AutoFit behavior options at their default values. Make sure you choose the appropriate delimiter character from the Separate text at options. In this case, I separated by columns with a blank space, so I've chosen Other and typed a blank space into the box.
4. Click OK to complete the process.
If you have an unanswered technical question that you would like to see addressed in an upcoming issue, feel free to email it to social@navitend.com.
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