In Pictures: 10 Word Table Secrets

8. Make Smart Headings for Narrow Columns

When you create a table with lots of columns, the columns could become extremely narrow in order to fit within the document's margins. If you use long strings of text for column headings, they might become hyphenated beyond comprehension, or even truncated. The solution is to rotate that text. Select the cells containing the column headings, and choose Table Tools > Layout. Select Text Direction from the Alignment options, and click until the Ribbon image displays the text oriented in the appropriate direction (typically, pointing up). Now type the text into the heading cells in the table, and it will rotate and fit much better.