Feel Tips - Convert a List to Formatted Table in Word Document

In Microsoft Word document, list and table are both used for users to easily get the point of content.  Lists are great, but sometimes a table is much better.  In this post, you will learn how to fast convert list to table in Word document.  Now, let’s go to the steps.

1. First, select the list content. (Click the Move handle, the small four-arrow pointer at the top-left corner.)
2. Go to the Insert tab in the menu bar.
3. Click the Table option in the Tables group.
4. Choose Convert Text to Table from the dropdown list. (In Word 2003, choose Convert from the Table menu and then select Text To Table.)

Word does a good job of assuming the table setup based on the list’s composition. In this case, Word wants to create two columns, based on the tab characters that separate the two columns. This is correct, so click OK without changing any settings.  That won’t always be the case, so be sure to check the settings carefully.

Then, the whole list to table conversion is finished.  

After create the table, if you want to reduce the width of the first column or want to add some styles, you can go to the Live Preview (in the ribbon versions) where you can quickly format the table by selecting the table and clicking the contextual Design tab and hovering over the many styles in the gallery (in the Table Styles group).

By clicking the Table Styles dialog launcher (the arrow in the group’s bottom-right corner) to display the entire gallery we can get more choices for styles. In Word 2003, we can choose Table AutoFormat from the Table menu to find predefined formats.

In this case, the format adds bold to the top row, assuming it’s a row of headings, so remove the bold from the second column in the first row. To move the entire table, click the Move handle and drag and drop the whole table.

Vice versa, to remove the table or convert table to text, we can select it and click Convert To Text in the Data group on the contextual Layout tab. Then, Microsoft Word will remove the table and its format, leaving the text in its original list form.

If you want the list flush with the left margin, be sure to move the table before converting it back to text. In Word 2003, select the list and choose Convert from the Table menu. Then, select Table To Text.