Inserting a table into your Microsoft Word document is pretty easy. However, getting it to look and act exactly how you want can be challenging. In light of this, I’m going to share five common practices I use to make my life easier when I’m designing tables.

• Use the TAB key - Need to insert a new row at the end of your table? Don’t bother clicking through the menus, simply press TAB in the last cell in the last row of your existing table and a new row will be added.
• Add multiple rows - Another shortcut for adding more than one row to your table, simply highlight cells in more than one row and insert a row as you normally would. This will insert a number of blank rows equal to the number of rows you highlighted. For instance, if I highlight the first cell in two rows of my table, then click Table -> Insert -> Rows Above, then two blank rows will be inserted above the first row with a highlighted cell. This will also work for columns.
• Easily make your table fit - This is a problem that I’ve run into multiple times: Making my table fit onto a page. Even if it’s landscape, I still may have a problem. I usually see this when I’m porting over tables from Excel. If you work in Print Layout View like me, then resizing this table can be difficult. However, if you just switch to Normal view, you can view the whole table and easily manipulate its size.
• Make your tables consistent - This is more of a design tip for your document. Making your tables consistent in your document adds a professional touch. Once you create a table, use it as a base for your other tables (read: cut and paste) if you can. Not only does this save you time by having the table pre-formatted, but it also saves you time because you don’t have to design a new table layout each time. By adding or subtracting a few columns, your table is quickly done.
• Use Auto-Numbers in your table - If you are creating any kind of table where each row has a unique number (like steps), then make sure to use the Auto-Number function for these cells (the little “1..2..3″ icon). This way, when you add a new row, that cell will automatically be populated for you. Also, the other numbers will adjust themselves if you make changes in the middle of your table.