How to properly merge two tables in MS Word

Question

This could be the dumbest question ever. But I would ask it anyway. Because I'm really pissed of at how MS Word 2010 handles what I really want to do. In this case merge 2 tables together. I do the usual drag and drop but I'm out of luck:

Please help, I'm stuck at this. I don't know if my mouse if the problem but even if I use the touch pad I still get this crap.

Answer 1

From allexperts.com:

There are a few things you can check on:

1. Make sure that the second table doesn't have any rows marked as heading rows.

2. Make sure that neither table is wrapped (wrapping should be set to None on the Table tab of Table Properties).

3. Make sure that neither table (even if they appear identical) is nested in one large cell of a containing table (this sometimes happens with material pasted from the Web).

That said, I can tell you that I once had two tables--which I had created myself, so I know there was nothing unusual about them--that just refused to merge, for no apparent reason. It's possible that the table structures were somehow damaged, and if I'd been doing this in Word 2003, perhaps using Open and Repair would have fixed the problem. As it was, it wasn't vital that the tables be actually part of the same table, so I shrugged and moved on.

If you encounter such a situation, you have really only two recourses (if Open and Repair doesn't help):

1. Add rows to the first table and copy/paste the content of the second table into them.

2. Convert both tables to text, then convert all the text back to a single table.

Sorry I can't be more definitive, but this is a mystery to me, too!

Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word) 1998-2006

Answer 2

Similar situation I had was resolved by adding a blank row to the bottom of the upper table and a blank row to top of the lower table. Neither of these two new rows should have columns and both tables should be the identical width. Then, by removing any returns (blank lines) between the two tables, they should automatically join. Afterward, you can remove any unwanted rows.