7.3 Lists and tables

What you'll be able to do

Make numbered lists that keep counting correctly, and tables that stay where you put them. These are the two structures that misbehave most for people who never learned their rules.

Before you start

Carry on in the formatting practice document. Its list restarts at 1 in the wrong place, and its table spreads out of control. Both are deliberate.

The work

1. Same either way: start lists from the Home tab's buttons for bullets, numbering and multilevel lists. Word will also start one when you type "1." and a space. The number belongs to the paragraph, and you can see that with the marks on (Ctrl+Shift+8): each paragraph mark carries its number. Delete or move a paragraph and the list numbers itself again. That is the point of real lists over typed numbers.
2. Same either way: change levels from the keyboard. At the start of a list item, Tab moves it down a level and Shift+Tab moves it back up. A multilevel list, going 1, then a, then i, grows under your hands. The multilevel gallery on the Home tab chooses the numbering for all levels at once.
3. Same either way: take control when Word guesses wrong. The paragraph's context menu, at Shift+F10, offers Restart at 1 and Continue Numbering. A list interrupted by a plain paragraph and then resumed wants Continue. A genuinely new list under the same style wants Restart. You decide, and you never retype numbers by hand.
4. No documented keyboard shortcut for this — use the menu: insert tables from Insert → Table and pick the size of the grid. Move between cells with Tab, and backwards with Shift+Tab. Pressing Tab in the last cell adds a new row, which is how tables grow. To put a tab character inside a cell, press Ctrl+Tab.
5. No documented keyboard shortcut for this — use the menu: here is the essential setting for a long table. Select the heading row, then go to Table Layout → Repeat Header Rows. The headings now print again at the top of every page the table crosses. That is the difference between a table that can be read on page 6 and a page of unlabelled numbers.
6. No documented keyboard shortcut for this — use the menu: stop the columns spreading. Table Layout → AutoFit → Fixed Column Width holds the columns where you set them, while AutoFit to Contents lets them move with every edit. Alignment inside cells is on the same tab: numbers to the right, text to the left, headers in the centre. Borders are on the Table Design tab, and fewer lines than the default is usually better. One line under the header and light lines between rows beat a full grid.
7. Same either way: the boundary rule from Getting Your Footing now has teeth. A Word table holds small structured content that belongs with the prose, such as a five-row comparison or a schedule. The moment you want sorting, totals or fifty rows, the data belongs in Excel, and the document links to it or pastes from it.

Try it

Repair the practice document. Fix the restart in the middle of the list with Continue Numbering. Build one three-level list with Tab and Shift+Tab. Set the table's header row to repeat. Fix its column widths, move its numbers to the right, and reduce its borders to one line under the header and light lines between rows.

Check yourself