Clicking on Table under the Insert tab opens the drop down menu. The first option allows you to move your cursor over the white boxes to select how many rows and columns you need for your table. As you do this a table outline is drawn in your document. Once the number of columns and rows are highlighted, clicking with your left mouse button inserts the table into your document. The number of rows and columns can always be changed if needed.

The next option on the menu is Insert Table. This opens the Insert Table dialogue box where you can set the Table size along with AutoFit behavior. AutoFit behavior allows you to set a fixed column width, which will stay the same width no matter how much text is inserted. AutoFit to contents allows the columns to change their width depending on what you are typing into them. So a column with less text will be narrower than one with more text. AutoFit to window will spread the columns equally from margin to margin. When a table is inserted or selected the Table Tools menu appears.

Draw table, the next option, when selected turns the cursor into a pencil icon. While holding down your right mouse button draw a box the size you want your table to be. Once drawn, the Table Tools menu appears on your tool bar. Draw borders under Table Tools provides choices for border widths, colors and additional options for drawing or erasing borders.

The next option under the Table menu is Convert Text to Table. This is where you can take paragraphs, tabbed text, or texts separated by commas, periods, semi-colons, even letters and turn it into a table. First you have to highlight the text to make this option available, and then select Convert Text to Table to open the dialogue box. Table size and AutoFit behavior come up as options as well as Separate text at, with the additional options of Paragraphs, Commas, Tabs or Other. Selecting Other allows you to type in the white box the character or symbol that should be used to separate the text into columns.

Excel Spreadsheet is the next option to insert a table. Selecting this option opens a worksheet in Excel with a corresponding table grid in Word. Typing directly into the Excel spreadsheet inserts into the table in Word at the same time. All formatting and use of table tools has to be done in Excel. Double clicking on the table in Word will bring you back to Excel where changes can be made. Creating a table this way gives you all the functions available in Excel that are not available in Word.

The last option for inserting a table in Word is Quick Tables. Under Quick Tables there are four calendar tables as well as several different table formats setup that you can insert and then modify for your own use. There is also the option of putting a table that you have created or use frequently into the Quick Tables Gallery. Do this by first selecting the table you want to include and then choosing Save Selection to Quick Tables Gallery. This opens the Create a New Building Block dialogue box where the options to name, describe, locate, categorize and save are located.

The last thing to cover is how to delete a table that is no longer needed. To delete the whole table, select the table to activate Table Tools, then select the Layout tab, then Delete. The drop down menu allows you to delete cells, columns, rows or the whole table.