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How to Convert a Table to Text in Word 2016

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Updated:  
2016-03-26 07:21:54
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From The Book:  
Word 2010 For Dummies
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At some point, you may surrender the notion of needing a table in Word 2016 and desire the text to be freed from the table's confines. To perform such a jailbreak, you convert the table back into plain text or even tab-formatted text. Obey these steps:

  1. Click inside the table you want to convert.

    Don't select anything — just click the mouse.

  2. Click the Table Tools Layout tab.

  3. From the Table group, choose Select→Select Table.

  4. From the Data group, choose Convert to Text.

    The Convert to Text dialog box appears. It guesses how you want the table converted, such as using tabs or paragraphs.

  5. Click OK.

    Bye-bye, table. Hello, ugly text.

Some post-table-destruction cleanup might be necessary, but generally the conversion goes well. The only issue you may have is when a cell contains multiple paragraphs of text. In that case, undo the operation (press Ctrl+Z) and choose Paragraph Marks from the Convert to Text dialog box (before Step 5).

About This Article

This article is from the book: 

About the book author:

Dan Gookin has been writing about technology for 20 years. He has contributed articles to numerous high-tech magazines and written more than 90 books about personal computing technology, many of them accurate.
He combines his love of writing with his interest in technology to create books that are informative and entertaining, but not boring. Having sold more than 14 million titles translated into more than 30 languages, Dan can attest that his method of crafting computer tomes does seem to work.
Perhaps Dan’s most famous title is the original DOS For Dummies, published in 1991. It became the world’s fastest-selling computer book, at one time moving more copies per week than the New York Times number-one best seller (although, because it’s a reference book, it could not be listed on the NYT best seller list). That book spawned the entire line of For Dummies books, which remains a publishing phenomenon to this day.
Dan’s most recent titles include PCs For Dummies, 9th Edition; Buying a Computer For Dummies, 2005 Edition; Troubleshooting Your PC For Dummies; Dan Gookin’s Naked Windows XP; and Dan Gookin’s Naked Office. He publishes a free weekly computer newsletter, “Weekly Wambooli Salad,” and also maintains the vast and helpful Web site www.wambooli.com.