Scott, from Phoenix asks, "I have a Word 2007 document with a table and only want text. Is there a way to remove the table and leave the text?"
Laying out text in Word can sometimes be confusing. I see people create tables to help with laying out the text and I've seen people that use the "Tab" key to create the layout for text.
There are two schools of thought on whether or not to convert Table to text. Once a Table has been created, hiding the borders creates the look of using the "Tab" key to create the layout you desire. However, using the Table allows users to keep text in a specific placement and hiding or showing borders can be changed at any time.
When the need to convert Table to text arises, here's how to simply convert the Table in Word 2007.
Highlight the Table and click on the "Layout" Tab in the "Table Tools" ribbons.
NOTE: The "Table Tools" ribbons and tabs will not appear when the cursor is not within the Table area.
Click on the "Convert to Text" button in the "Data" area of the ribbon.
See image above and left.
In the pop-up window, select the option in which you want to separate the Table. The option you select places the specific divider into the text once the Table has been removed.
If "Paragraph Marks" is selected, each cell of the Table becomes its own paragraph.
Selecting the "Tabs" option places a tab marker in between each cell, leaving the text in the same layout as the original Table. Selecting the "Commas" option places a comma between each cell.
This option may be used for text that will be used in a database. The text may then be saved and used to insert into an Excel database or similar, choosing "comma separated" as the option when converting into the database software.
The "Other" option allows the user to specify the delimiter. A delimiter is simply the divider that is placed between the data. You'll see that to convert Table to text has many options.
Each user must decide how the data is to be used after the Table is converted or removed prior to following the steps above.
Always remember to use the "Undo" key if the desired results are not given.
