Machine running Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit. MS Office with Word 2003 (I'm
pretty sure). Very specific question - you will either know the answer or
not. I'm not looking to mess about trying things. Just seeing if anybody
knows this.

Some months back, I started to make a document where I could write in
values - that's with a pen on a printed-out sheet. It started out as a plain
text document, but then as it got some way along, I made the places where I
wanted to write stuff in into crude 'boxes' by using underscore , lots of
tabs, and that vertical line above the "\" at the left side of the
keyboard - 'pipe' is it called ?? Not a very elegant way of doing it, I
know, but I was already too far in time-wise when I realised that I should
have constructed a table, and it didn't matter what it looked like, as it
was just for me.

At some point, I had copied a line of these boxes, and was merrily pasting
in copies down the page. All of a sudden, a question box popped up on the
screen that said something like "Are you trying to create a table ?" That
might not have been exactly it, but along those lines. I was a bit taken
aback by this 'intelligent' intervention on the part of Word, and without
looking much closer, I just clicked "YES". It wasn't going to do much harm
as I had only just saved a copy. Long and short of it - Bam! It converted
the whole page into a beautifully tabulated sheet with neat boxes and rows
and columns made out of uninterrupted lines. It was a better result than I
think I could have created had I have gone straight for a table.

So, the question is, does anyone know (for certain) how this happened, or
how I invoke this feature again, as I have another similarly-made document
now that I would dearly love Word to do the same to ...

I've looked on the 'net at tutorials, forums, question boards, you name it.
But no reference to this one click solution. Lots of stuff about converting
text to tables and all sorts of multi-stage conversion processes, but
nothing as simple as answering "YES" to a question automatically posed by
Word itself. I know there's lots of computah boffs on here much cleverer at
it than me, so anyone know what I'm talking about ?

Arfa

In message , Arfa Daily
writes
Machine running Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit. MS Office with Word 2003
(I'm pretty sure). Very specific question - you will either know the
answer or not. I'm not looking to mess about trying things. Just seeing
if anybody knows this.

Table/Convert/Text to table? I did select sample text first, but maybe
it works without that.
Arfa

--
Nick (=----)

"Nick" wrote in message
...
In message , Arfa Daily
writes
Machine running Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit. MS Office with Word 2003 (I'm
pretty sure). Very specific question - you will either know the answer or
not. I'm not looking to mess about trying things. Just seeing if anybody
knows this.

Table/Convert/Text to table? I did select sample text first, but maybe
it works without that.
Arfa

--
Nick (=----)


Yeah, I thought that when I was trying to get to it earlier, but it didn't
do it ... :-(

Arfa

On 31/10/2015 17:46, Arfa Daily wrote:

So, the question is, does anyone know (for certain) how this happened,
or how I invoke this feature again, as I have another similarly-made
document now that I would dearly love Word to do the same to ...

I'm guessing that you had "help" enabled and Word itself guessed what
you wanted to do.

Otherwise as the other poster said, select all and convert text to table.
Works best if you already used tabs or commas as delineating characters.

On 31 Oct 2015, "Arfa Daily" grunted:

Some months back, I started to make a document where I could write in
values - that's with a pen on a printed-out sheet. It started out as a
plain text document, but then as it got some way along, I made the
places where I wanted to write stuff in into crude 'boxes' by using
underscore , lots of tabs, and that vertical line above the "\" at the
left side of the keyboard - 'pipe' is it called ?? Not a very elegant
way of doing it, I know, but I was already too far in time-wise when I
realised that I should have constructed a table, and it didn't matter
what it looked like, as it was just for me.

At some point, I had copied a line of these boxes, and was merrily
pasting in copies down the page. All of a sudden, a question box
popped up on the screen that said something like "Are you trying to
create a table ?" That might not have been exactly it, but along those
lines. I was a bit taken aback by this 'intelligent' intervention on
the part of Word, and without looking much closer, I just clicked
"YES". It wasn't going to do much harm as I had only just saved a
copy. Long and short of it - Bam! It converted the whole page into a
beautifully tabulated sheet with neat boxes and rows and columns made
out of uninterrupted lines. It was a better result than I think I
could have created had I have gone straight for a table.

So, the question is, does anyone know (for certain) how this happened,
or how I invoke this feature again, as I have another similarly-made
document now that I would dearly love Word to do the same to ...

Sounds like the ghastly Office Assistant to me (that Microsoft dumped
after Office 2003 - was there a dancing paper clip on screen too?). I
remember that it could be switched off - which was the first thing I
ever did when starting to use an early copy of Office! - but assuming
yours is switched on, that doesn't explain why it doesn't replicate the
behaviour now. Dunno.

If all your tables are put together using 'pipe' symbols as separators,
doesn't the 'Convert text to table' tool work for you, if you define the
separators accordingly within the tool? Maybe try converting the
'pipes' to tabs (^t) first?

--
David

If all your tables are put together using 'pipe' symbols as separators,
doesn't the 'Convert text to table' tool work for you, if you define the
separators accordingly within the tool? Maybe try converting the
'pipes' to tabs (^t) first?

--
David


No office assistant agent enabled. I too couldn't stand the dreadful little
man and the animated paper clip. I'll maybe try the 'convert text to table'
again now I've got it all in the right places with tabs. The only reason
that I'm asking really, is when it asked me before if I was "trying to make
a table", it took me completely by surprise. I had never in many years of
using Office / Word had any such 'intelligent' intervention before, and the
result was amazingly good without any further input from me other than
clicking on "YES". I just wondered if anyone knew for certain how this had
happened, or what I was doing to make it happen.

Arfa

"Arfa Daily" wrote in message
...
Machine running Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit. MS Office with Word 2003 (I'm
pretty sure). Very specific question - you will either know the answer or
not. I'm not looking to mess about trying things. Just seeing if anybody
knows this.

Some months back, I started to make a document where I could write in
values - that's with a pen on a printed-out sheet. It started out as a
plain text document, but then as it got some way along, I made the places
where I wanted to write stuff in into crude 'boxes' by using underscore ,
lots of tabs, and that vertical line above the "\" at the left side of the
keyboard - 'pipe' is it called ?? Not a very elegant way of doing it, I
know, but I was already too far in time-wise when I realised that I should
have constructed a table, and it didn't matter what it looked like, as it
was just for me.

At some point, I had copied a line of these boxes, and was merrily pasting
in copies down the page. All of a sudden, a question box popped up on the
screen that said something like "Are you trying to create a table ?" That
might not have been exactly it, but along those lines. I was a bit taken
aback by this 'intelligent' intervention on the part of Word, and without
looking much closer, I just clicked "YES". It wasn't going to do much harm
as I had only just saved a copy. Long and short of it - Bam! It converted
the whole page into a beautifully tabulated sheet with neat boxes and rows
and columns made out of uninterrupted lines. It was a better result than I
think I could have created had I have gone straight for a table.

So, the question is, does anyone know (for certain) how this happened, or
how I invoke this feature again, as I have another similarly-made document
now that I would dearly love Word to do the same to ...

I've looked on the 'net at tutorials, forums, question boards, you name
it. But no reference to this one click solution. Lots of stuff about
converting text to tables and all sorts of multi-stage conversion
processes, but nothing as simple as answering "YES" to a question
automatically posed by Word itself. I know there's lots of computah boffs
on here much cleverer at it than me, so anyone know what I'm talking about
?

You'd be better off doing it in Excel rather than Word, lot more control
over the formatting and it starts in table mode.

You'd be better off doing it in Excel rather than Word, lot more control
over the formatting and it starts in table mode.

I did consider doing it in Excel, but it's not a program that I have used
very much, so I'm not too familiar with it. Perhaps I should ask my son, as
he works with Excel, amongst other things, all day, and he's a walking user
manual for it. It's amazing to watch someone who can do everything with
keyboard shortcuts without even thinking about it. But then I suppose that's
the familiarity of using it professionally ...

Arfa

Arfa Daily wrote
Rod Speed wrote

You'd be better off doing it in Excel rather than Word, lot
more control over the formatting and it starts in table mode.

I did consider doing it in Excel, but it's not a program
that I have used very much, so I'm not too familiar with it.

Well worth getting familiar with it, leaves a calculator for dead as well.

Perhaps I should ask my son, as he works with Excel, amongst
other things, all day, and he's a walking user manual for it.

Yeah, ideal way of becoming useful with it.

It's amazing to watch someone who can do everything with
keyboard shortcuts without even thinking about it. But then
I suppose that's the familiarity of using it professionally ...

True, tho he does appear to be better at
it than the average professional user too.