At some point, you may have started to create a table in Word 2007, got a good amount of the table done, and then discovered you want to make your columns into rows and your rows into columns, basically turning your table 90 degrees, to better display your data.

Unfortunately, there is no way to easily transpose tables in Word 2007 without creating a new table and moving your data manually into it. However, you can transpose rows and columns in Excel. In this post, we will use both Word 2007 and Excel 2007 to transpose a table created in Word 2007.

We will use a simple example of a table in Word 2007 that we want to transpose.

Table in Word to be transposed

To select the table, put the insertion point in the first cell of the table. The Table Tools group of tabs displays on the ribbon. Click the Layout tab.

Selecting the Layout tab under Table Tools

In the Table section, click the arrow on the Select button and select Select Table from the drop-down menu.

Selecting the Select Table option on the Select button

Right-click on the selected table and select Copy from the popup menu.

Copying the table

Open Excel 2007 and select the cell that will be at the top-left corner of your pasted table from Word 2007. On the Home tab, click the arrow on the Paste button and select Paste Special from the drop-down menu.

Selecting Paste Special in Excel

The Paste Special dialog box displays. Select Text in the As list box and click OK.

Selecting Text on the Paste Special dialog box

The data is pasted into the cells and the cells are automatically highlighted. Press Ctrl + C to copy the pasted data.

To transpose the copied data, select the cell that will be at the top-left corner of your newly transposed data. Click the arrow on the Paste button on the Home tab and select Transpose from the drop-down menu.

Copying and Transposing cells in Excel

The transposed data is pasted into the appropriate number of cells and is automatically highlighted. Press Ctrl + C to copy the transposed data.

Transposed table in Excel

Go back to Word 2007 and put the insertion point where you want to paste the transposed data. Press Ctrl + V to paste the data. The data is automatically pasted into a table.

Transposed table pasted into Word

NOTE: Your tables may not be showing the gridlines in your copy of Word as displayed in the image below (the blue dashed lines). Showing the gridlines on tables makes it easier to change the width of columns and to format your table.

To display the gridlines on a table, put the insertion point in any cell of a table to display the Table Tools group of tabs. Click the Layout tab. In the Table group, click the View Gridlines button, which is right next to the Select button discussed earlier in this post.

Viewing table gridlines

You can now format the table however you want. The image below displays the original table and the transposed table in the same format to illustrate the different between the two tables.

Transposed table formatted in Word

You may not have much of a need to use this trick often, but it is a useful trick to know for when you do need it.

by Lori Kaufman