Video: Format using tables

If you are formatting a lot of text, like in a resume, using a table looks odd, but helps you organize and align content very quickly.

Format using tables

If you want to create a document like a resume without a template, we recommend using a table. It seems ugly when typing, but it formats well and you can remove the table lines later.

1. To remove tables lines, click anywhere on the table, and select the DESIGN tab under TABLE TOOLS.

2. Select Border and then No Border from the drop-down.

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We’re going to show you here how to format using a table. We’ll show you why a table is a great time saver in just a moment.

But for people who want to do a resume without a template —sounds kind of scary to me— but you want to know so here we go.

I’m going to click on basic document.

Now I have a little cheat here… I’m just going to add my address box here really quick.

Now if I was working with, you know, a template here, I put up “Objective” and tab, tab, tab, and start writing what my objective is and then “Skills,” tab, tab, tab, “Experience,” tab, tab, tab… you get the idea.

Let me show you something over here.

Let me go up to the ribbon here and click on Show and Hide Paragraph Marks so you can see what I’m doing here.

Now each of those arrows is a tab. And as I write out this document, I going to see… hmm, I need cut out a tab or add a tab.

And then I need to do that with each area of my resume. It’s going to take a lot of time.

Now some people use tabs in ruler and that can save some time but a table can be a big time saver.

I’m going to show you how here. So let’s delete that and then I’m going to go over to INSERT, and Insert Table.

Click on that and I can just drag my mouse down here and I can make a table. And I’m going to make a two by five table.

I can add rows very easily and delete them later. But now this looks really funky.

I know you’re going to … Doug, what are those borders doing? Or Darryl, what are those borders doing there?

So let’s just hang with me for just a second over here, though. Let’s do 'Objective', 'Skills', 'Experience', okay.

And what I’m going to do now is I’m going to go back to my old resume here and grab the 'Objective'.

And just paste that in.

So each part of my resume goes in to one cell.

So even though I have three skills here, I’m going to put that in to one cell.

'Experience', I mean I have what, three here. Even if I had eight or so I’m going to add all in just one cell.

This is looking ugly and I know that. I know that. But now that everything lined up… watch what I can do with a table.

I can put my cursor right here in the middle and the cursor changes. I can also do this in a ruler.

I can drag this entire column over here. So now it’s looking more like a resume, right?

I have my titles on my left and my text on the right.

Now watch I can do this… let me click on this plus sign that I get in Word 2013 and that will add another column.

I’m just going to make this really thin column but it’ll act as a buffer between my titles and my text.

Now I’m in TABLE TOOLS here and I can do some things to get rid of those borders, because I know some people just are looking at those borders and I’ve heard a word I’ve said because… ugh… those borders!

Okay, let’s get rid of them. I’m going to go to TABLE TOOLS.

You see that in the ribbon here. Now hand on, it’s contextual tab which means… watch…if I click on away from the table, they’ll disappear.

You have to be in whatever you’re working on for those contextual tabs to appear.

So let me click on this plus sign to get the whole table, TABLE TOOLS up here.

I can go to Borders, and I can go down and say No Border. Now that’s looking pretty good.

Let me turn off the paragraph mark here. Okay. Now looks like I need to add some spaces here. Now here is formatting I can do.

Also, let me click on this plus sign one more time.

You can also do this in the TABLE TOOLS, DESIGN, Borders, and you can go down here to View Gridlines.

And now those gridlines appear.

They’re dashes so they won’t print but you can kind of see the table where appears and if you need to adjust all of them at once… look at that, you can do that.

So that’s how to work with a table when formatting a document.

In the next video, we’re going to show you some hints and tools to improve you resume just a little bit better.