2 Easy Ways to Wrap Text In a Table in Microsoft Word

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Easily fit text inside of a table cell in Word

Written by Rain Kengly

Last Updated: June 9, 2024 Fact Checked

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Wrapping Text Outside a Table

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Wrapping Text Within a Table

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Are you having trouble wrapping text in a table in Word? While Word does this automatically, it may not always format the text how you want it to. Here's how to wrap text within a table and outside a table on Microsoft Word.

Quick Steps

Right-click the table.
Click Table Properties .
Click Around .
Click Positioning… to add more specifications.
Click OK .

Method 1

Method 1 of 2:

Wrapping Text Outside a Table

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1
Right-click the table . A drop-down menu will open.
- Use this method to apply text wrapping to text outside of the table . This will change how text appears surrounding your text. ^{[1]
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- To apply text wrapping inside the table, skip to the next method .
2
Click Table Properties . This is towards the bottom of the drop-down menu.
- A new window will open.
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3
Under "Text Wrapping", select Around . This adds text wrapping to the outside of your table.
- If desired, you can set the Alignment as Left , Center , or Right .
4
Adjust the positioning (optional). If you want to add more customizations, click Positioning… on the right side of the menu.
- Set the Horizontal and/or Vertical Position as: Left, Right, Center, Inside, or Outside relative to: Margin, Page, or Column.
- Specify the distance from the surrounding text by clicking the up or down arrows for Top, Bottom, Left, or Right.
- Apply more options such as: Move with text or Allow overlap .
- Click OK when you're finished.
This will save your changes.

Method 2

Method 2 of 2:

Wrapping Text Within a Table

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1
Click the table. This will select it.
- By default, Microsoft Word automatically wraps text inside of a table cell. If you set rows to be a specific height, they will not change as you add content to the cells. Use this method to allow the cells to expand or revert back to default. ^{[2]
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The entire table will be selected.
This is towards the bottom of the drop-down menu.
This is the tab at the top, between Table and Column .
5
Select the "Specify height" box. There should be a checkmark, and the drop-down menus will no longer be grayed out.
- If you want to remove a height specification entirely, uncheck the box so there's no checkmark. Then, click OK to save your changes.
This is on the right side of the menu.
This will allow your table's row height to change as you add text.
Your changes will be saved.