Word table left padding

Cell Margins and Cell Spacing are two important settings in any Microsoft Word Table but they aren’t used much and not well understood.

Cell margins are the spaces between your text and the edge of the cell. They can be set separately for the top, bottom, and either side of the cells.

To change the cell margins, we again click in the table and go to the Layout tab on the right. Then click Cell Margins in the Alignment group.

In the Table Options dialog that opens, use the spinners to incrementally change each of the four margins, or simply type in the margin that you want into each field; Top, Bottom, Left or Right.

The margins we’ve selected above are quite large, just to show you clearly how his setting changes your table.  Here’s the large cell margins (left) compared to zero cell margins (right).

You can, of course have different margins on different sides:

Individual, Row or Column Cell Margins

Table cell margins can be changed for a row, column or even a single cell, but it’s nowhere near the main Cell Margins ribbon button.

Select the column, row or cell you want to change then go to Table Layout | Table | Properties | Cell | Options.  UNcheck the box ‘Same at the whole table’ then change the margin settings.

Here’s a single row, highlighted a little by increasing the top & bottom cell margins.

Why Adjust Table Cell Margins?

Cell margins are useful to separate lines in a table, especially when there’s no gridlines. Change the Top & Bottom cell margins to separate the lines and improve readability.

When space is tight, reducing the default left & right cell margins can help fit a table or contents into the available space.

Cell Spacing Tricks in Word Tables

Word’s Table Options have an interesting choice, Cell Spacing. While cell margins are the space between the text and the edge of the cell, cell spacing puts space around each of the cells.

Cell spacing has a surprising effect on the look of a Word Table with single line borders.

Go to Table | Alignment | Cell Margins | Default cell spacing | Allow spacing between cells.

The default is OFF with no spacing.

Here’s how a Table looks using a standard single line border but increasing the cell spacing from the default, Zero.

Changes to Table Borders

As you can see, the single line table border becomes a twin gridline just by adding cell spacing to the same table.

Word table with Footnotes

Merge Cells in Word tables

Word tables for formatting magic

Indexing ‘bug’ in Word tables

Usually, the table contains the following basic components:

• The table number (e.g., Table 1) and the title appear above the table body (see how to create a caption for tables).
• The table includes column headings, including a stub heading (heading for the leftmost, or stub, column). Some tables also include column spanners, decked heads, and table spanners. See how to format tables in a Word document.
• The table body contains all the rows and columns of a table (including the headings row). A cell is the point of intersection between a row and a column. See how to select and format table elements.
• All types of notes (general, specific, and probability) appear below the table if there are notes. Notes describe contents of the table that cannot be understood from the table title or body alone (e.g., definitions of abbreviations, copyright attribution, etc.).

See also how to create cross-references to a table.

Align the table on the page

By default, Word aligns the table to the Left. If you want to change an alignment of the table on the page, select it and do one of the following:

• On the Home tab, in the Paragraph group, select the alignment you prefer:

  

• Open the Table Properties dialog box by doing one of the following:
  • On the Table Layout tab, in the Table group, click the Properties button:

    

  • Right-click the table and select Table Properties… in the popup menu:

    

  In the Table Properties dialog box, on the Table tab, in the Alignment section, select the option you prefer:

  

• Press the keyboard shortcuts:
  • Ctrl+L to align a table to the Left (by default),
  • Ctrl+E to Center the table,
  • Ctrl+R to align a table to the Right.

Add indent from left

The Indent from left controls the distance of the table from the left margin. To add the Indent from left, do one of the following:

• On the Home tab, in the Paragraph group, click the Increase Indent button:

  

• Open the Properties dialog box. In the Table Properties dialog box, on the Table tab, in the Alignment section, type or choose the value you need in the Indent from left field:

  

  Note: The Indent from left field is active only for the Left alignment.

For example, the table with a left indent 0.5 inches:

Text Wrapping for a table

Word offers to customize the text wrapping style for a table, as well as for figures. To customize a text wrapping style, do the following:

   1.   Select a table.

   2.   Open the Table Properties dialog box. In the Table Properties dialog box, on the Table tab, in the Text wrapping section:

• Select None to disable text wrapping for the table
• Select the Around option to have text wrapping around the table. Then click the Positioning… button for more customization:

  

  In the Table Positioning dialog box:

  

Position a table

• In the Horizontal sections, specify:
  • Position to the Left, Right, Center, Inside, or Outside,
  • Relative to the Margin, Page, or Column.

  For example, with Position to the Right relative to Margin:

  

• In the Vertical section, specify:
  • Position to the Top, Bottom, Center, Inside, or Outside,
  • Relative to the Margin, Page, or Column.

  For example, with Position to the Top relative to Page:

  

Increase the space between text and table

• In the Distance from surrounding text section, enter custom values for the distance between the text and the table independently for:
  • Top (0 by default),
  • Bottom (0 by default),
  • Left (1.13 inches by default),
  • Right (1.13 inches by default).

  For example, with the 0.3-inch distance on all sides:

  

Note: See also how to change a distance within a table.

Text wrapping options

• In the Options section:
  • The Move with text option moves the table along with the text in which it is located.

    Select the Move with Text option if the text is directly related to the table data. The table is vertically aligned to the related paragraph around it. If the table data applies to the whole document, keep the Move with Text option unselected.

  • Allow overlap allows to layer table on top of each other.

Position a large table

Control where a table is split

When working with a long table, or when a table needs to be placed at the bottom of the page, splitting up a table into two separate tables is necessary. By default, if a page break occurs within a large row, Microsoft Word allows a page break to split the line between two pages (see How to prevent a table break between pages).

To insert a table break at a specific location, position the cursor on the cell on the row, or select the row that should appear on the next page, then do one of the following:

• Press Ctrl+Enter.
• On the Table Layout tab, in the Merge group, click the Split Table button:

Be careful! Word applies the chosen style to the new table. If you Undo the table splitting, the formatting may not be Undone correctly.

Add an Alternative text (Alt Text)

Most requirements recommend adding alternative text for visual objects, including tables (see how to turn off automatically creating the Alternative text).

To add an alternative text for a table, do the following:

   1.   Select a table.

   2.   Do one of the following:

• On the Table Layout tab, in the Table group, click the Properties button.
• Right-click the table and select Table Properties… in the popup menu.

   3.   In the Table Properties dialog box, on the Alt Text tab:

• In the Title field, type a title, if necessary.
• In the Description field, fill the description for the table.
• Click the OK button.

Here’s an issue I found in a document I was editing this week—someone had set most of the tables to have 0 cm padding for the left and right margins of each cell (the default is 0.19 cm for metric users). This meant the text butted right up against the cell borders (it was most noticeable on the left as I was using ragged right justification). I needed to change the cell padding back to 0.19 cm.

This is easy enough to do if you’ve only got one or two tables to fix (select the table, right-click and select Table Properties; on the Table tab, click Options, then set the left and right margins to 0.19 cm; click OK to save and exit).

But this was a nearly 300-page document with hundreds of tables, many of which had their margins set to 0 cm. Off to Google to see if someone had a quicker way. They did. I tested the macro and modified it a bit for my purposes, then ran it on a copy of my big document and fixed the problem on all tables in my document in seconds.

Notes:

• This macro will set the left and right margin padding for ALL tables in your document. In most cases that’s what you’ll want, but if you want some tables to have different padding, change those tables or cells manually after running this macro.
• ALWAYS test on a copy of your document before running the macro on your main document!

Here’s the macro (I suggest you copy it from here so that you get all of it—on some devices, the text may go off the screen):

Sub TablePadding()
'
' TablePadding Macro
' Adapted from a macro by Greg Maxey: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/all/vba-code-to-set-all-word-tables-left-cell-margin/420672d4-d294-40a9-8832-7bebb3ab9bf0
' Set left and right cell padding for ALL table cells to 0.19 cm
'
Dim oTbl As Word.Table
 For Each oTbl In ActiveDocument.Tables
    oTbl.LeftPadding = CentimetersToPoints(0.19)
    oTbl.RightPadding = CentimetersToPoints(0.19)
 Next

Thanks to Greg Maxey for the original macro that I modified. If you want to change the padding to be smaller or larger, change the 0.19 value to a smaller or larger number.