We start working on a document, add text, and suddenly realize that it would be better in a table. We don’t have to do it all over again, it’s possible convert text to a table in microsoft wordwe are simply going to have to follow these steps.
We cannot deny that Microsoft’s office suite provides us with different tools to facilitate our work, such as placing images and other objects; something that could be very useful when we want to add extras to our document.
Convert text to a table in Word
It is possible to choose the type of delimiter that we are using to correctly convert the text. To serve as an example: we can separate words with commas or phrases with tabs. In case we are not sure, it is possible to show the paragraph marks from the Home tab and then selecting the Show/Hide Paragraph button.
This is something we need to know if we’re using tabs, because we don’t see them in normal text, only when we display paragraph marks.
Now we select the text that we want to turn into a table. Let’s go to the Insert tab and click on the Table dropdown arrow. Here we are going to choose Convert text to table.
In the pop-up window, we will have to choose the number of columns we want. By default, the text we select will be separated into columns. If we prefer to use rows, we will simply reduce the number of columns so that the number of rows correlates with the number of elements we have selected.
Another thing we can do is select the Auto-Fit Behavior. Here we can choose a specific width for the columns or AutoFit the table to the content or window.
To finish, we will choose the delimiter that we are using. In the example that accompanies this article, we are going to have a list of names separated by tabs.
Click on OK to finish. Let’s see that our text appears in a table. Additionally, we can add rows, change their size or center the text.
Convert a list to a table
In the case of wanting to convert a list into a table, the process is a bit different from text because the list is already separated by numbers or bullets. This makes each element in a separate row instead of a column, but it is possible to change this, we want it.
We are going to select the entire list that we want to turn into a table. If we want to include the numbers or bullets, we will continue with the next step. However, if we don’t want them in the table, we’ll have to deselect the list type in the paragraph section.
Doing so will remove the numbers or bullets for the list items and they will be displayed separately.
Once we have the elements selected and ready, we will go to Insert > Table and we will choose Convert text to table. Here we are going to see the same pop-up that we saw earlier. By default, we will have to choose the elements that are displayed in rows. In case we want them to be in columns, we will have to enter the same number of columns as the number of elements in the list. Then we can choose AutoFit.
By default, the delimiter is set to Paragraph because the list items are separated. Then we click OK and we will see all the elements in a table.
Convert a table to text
In case we are not convinced by the result and we want to convert it back to plain text, it is possible to do so. We are going to have to select the table and go to the Design tab. Then we will click on Convert to text in the Data section.
A small window appears where we can choose how we want to separate the text.
Once we accept, we will see the result. In this way we can save a lot of time, much more than creating a table and having to move all the text to it.
