Tables > Converting text into a table

The previous section described how to convert a table into paragraphs of text. The reverse is also possible as you can convert text in tabular form into a table by choosing the command Insert | Table | Convert text to table.

To do so, proceed as follows:

1.	Select the paragraphs of text that you want to convert into a table.

2.	Choose the ribbon command Insert \| Table \| Convert text to table.

3.	First, select the Separator that will be used to separate the entries in the text (see below).

4.	Then specify the number of rows and columns that the table should have. (Write automatically suggests appropriate values by default.)

5.	Confirm with OK.

The text is now converted into a table. Each line of text becomes a row in the table.

An example:

You want to convert the following list of addresses into a table:

Peter;Miller;24 Main Street;12345;Whitneyville, AK

Thomas;Meyer;1733 University Drive;54321;Knoxville, TN

To do so, choose the command Insert | Table | Convert text to table and select semicolons as the Separator. As a result, you get the following table:

Peter	Miller	24 Main Street	12345	Whitneyville, AK
Thomas	Meyer	1733 University Drive	54321	Knoxville, TN

Options of the dialog box

The options in the dialog box for this command have the following functions:

▪Rows and Columns

You don't usually have to worry about these settings. If you have specified the separator correctly, Write automatically determines how many rows and columns the resulting table should have and suggests these values.

However, you can also enter your own values if necessary.

▪Separator

This is the most important setting: Here, you specify which character Write should use to recognize the separator for each entry.

You can choose from among the following:

Paragraph break: Each entry is in its own paragraph.

Tabs: The entries are separated by tabs.

Semicolon: The entries are separated by semicolons (;).

You can also enter any other separator under User-defined if the entries are separated by slashes or commas, for example. It is also possible to enter multiple characters here.

Note: The separator must not occur within an entry; if it does, Write will of course treat it as such and make two entries out of one entry.

▪Remove quotation marks

If you enable this option, Write will remove all surrounding quotation marks (") from the text during conversion.

This is useful if you want to convert a list in which all entries are enclosed within quotation marks: ("Henry"; "Meyer"; ...). Many database programs generate such lists.

▪Remove leading/trailing spaces

If you enable this option, Write will remove all leading and trailing spaces from the text entries when they are converted. (However, spaces within text entries will not be removed.)

Note: The reverse is also possible as you can convert tables into text. (See previous section.)