Apply and Modify Table Styles in Word Documents
Applies to: Microsoft ® Word ® 2013, 2016, 2019 or 365 (Windows)
You can apply table styles to your Word tables to format them quickly and consistently. Word is shipped with several built-in table styles or you can create your own. You can edit table styles by modifying borders, shading, character formatting, paragraph formatting and table properties. If your document includes multiple tables, table styles can save a lot of time.
Note: Buttons and Ribbon tabs may display in a different way (with or without text) depending on your version of Word, the size of your screen and your Control Panel settings. For Word 365 users, Ribbon tabs may appear with different names. For example, the Table Tools Design tab may appear as Table Design.
Recommended article: How to Keep a Microsoft Word Table Together on One Page
Table styles and themes
Every Word document uses a document theme which includes a font theme and color theme. The colors used in table styles are based on the color theme.
You can select document themes, color themes and font themes using the Themes, Colors or Fonts drop-down menus on the Design tab in the Ribbon:
Turning gridlines on
When you are working with tables, it’s a good idea to turn gridlines on. Borders, which are a format, will print. Gridlines do not print.
To turn on gridlines:
If your Word document contains multiple tables that you want to format in a consistent way, it’s best to use table styles rather than applying manual or direct formatting to each table.
To apply a table style to a table:
Hover over the various table styles. The table formatting will change as you move over different table styles in the gallery.
Below is the Table Styles gallery (the current theme is the Office theme):
Selecting Table Style Options
Once you have selected a table style, you can select different Table Style Options (which are affected by the formats in the table style).
To select Table Style Options:
In Table Style Options, check or uncheck Header Row. If this option is checked, the header row will be formatted differently from the body rows.
In Table Style Options, check or uncheck Total Row. If this option is checked, the last row will be formatted differently from the body rows.
In Table Style Options, check or uncheck Banded Rows or Banded Columns for alternate row or column shading.
In Table Style Options, check First Column or Last Column if you want the first or last column formatted differently from the other columns.
You can modify a table style in a Word document and all tables using that table style will change.
To modify a table style:
From the Apply Formatting to drop-down menu, select the element that you want to modify (such as Header row).
Select the desired formatting such as font, font size, font color, fill and border.
From the Apply Formatting to drop-down menu, select the next element that you want to modify.
Select the desired formatting such as font, font size, font color, fill and border.
Repeat for other elements.
Select Only in this document or New documents based on this template. If you select Only in this document, the modified style will only be available for the current document. If you select New documents based on this template, then the table style will be modified for future documents based on the current template (usually the Normal template).
Below is the Modify Style dialog box:
You can also modify Table Properties in a table style. Table properties include table alignment, row settings and cell margins.
To modify Table Properties in a table style:
Select any other formatting options you want to apply to the entire table.
Select Only in this document or New documents based on this template.
Below is the Table Properties dialog box with the Table tab selected:
You can also create a new or custom table style.
To create a custom table style:
Enter a name for the new table in the Name box.
Select the desired formatting.
Select Only in this document or New documents based on this template.
New Table Style appears at the bottom of the Table Styles gallery:
Clearing a table style
To clear a table style and remove formatting:
Clear appears at the bottom of the Table Styles gallery:
You can also set a default table style for new tables in the current document or all new documents.
To set a default table style:
Select This document only or All documents based on the chúng tôi template (the default template in Word is the Normal template).
If you are working with documents with multiple tables, formatting with table styles can ensure that your tables are formatted consistently and save a lot of time.
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