Managing Tables

Item A
The topic selected for the week’s discussion is modifying tables. This topic stands out
because tables are essential in summarizing text. Tables also allow text to be classified according
to the topic.
Item B
Several activities are involved in modifying tables, such as converting text to tables and
table to text. When converting text to a table, the separating characters are commas or tabs,
which also determine where the table is divided into columns (Lambert, 2019). Word
automatically determines the size of the columns, but one may change such size. There is also
the option to autofit the columns’ size to fit the text’s size (Lambert, 2019). Converting tables to
text can be done for the entire table or part of the table by selecting the part of the table that is to
be converted to text.
Item C
Tables and text offer important efficiency depending on the type of document. Some
information is better displayed in tabular form. For example, research data may be presented in a
tabular form and then explained in the form of text. Tables make it easy to follow the text and are
easy to understand. Tables can also be formatted to improve their appearance. Tables can also be
color-coded to enhance their appearance if the columns or rows contain related content. It makes
it easy for the reader to follow the ideas (Clinton et al., 2016). One feature I used once is
adjusting a page with a table from portrait to landscape layout to fit in extra rows.

References

Clinton, V., Morsanyi, K., Alibali, M. W., & Nathan, M. J. (2016). Learning about Probability
from Text and Tables: Do Color Coding and Labeling through an Interactive-user
Interface Help? Applied Cognitive Psychology, 30(3), 440–453.
https://doi.org/10.1002/acp.3223
Lambert, J. (2019). Microsoft Word 2019 Step by Step. Online. Retrieved from
https://learning.oreilly.com/library/view/microsoft-word-2019/9781509306244/