My question is about Microsoft Word version 2016, but I am open to a solution on other versions or even a workaround.
For my own purposes, I would like to be able to use two distinct tables in two independent columns. I looked all over the place, but I couldn't find a satisfying solution. Let me explain the issue:
- step 1: I create a "continuous" section break within a page.
- step 2: In the new section (below the continuous section break) I use the two-column mode.
- step 3: I create a first table in the first column.
- step 4: Just after this table I insert a column break.
- step 5: I insert a second table in the second column.
- step 6: I create a "continuous" section break to complete the section.
The result is almost perfect, but Word inserts a paragraph symbol that causes a line break before the second table. So the two tables are not aligned. I could play with line breaks to align the tables, but this results in an unwanted loss of space.
To be more explicit, here is what it gives in images (look at the highlighted paragraph symbol):
If I try to remove this paragraph symbol, Word removes the column break too and the two tables are merged, like in the screenshot below:
If I remove the table 2, the paragraph symbol is removed but the column break is kept:
Of course I could use only one table with two columns but it is not my goal here.
Edit related to the answers :
@Reddy Lutonadio
To better explain what I call an unwanted loss of space, here is a series of four screenshots, with an example of the use of two columns with and without tables. For each example, there is a screenshot in edit mode, and another in print mode. To make this clear, I turned on the border shadows on the paragraphs involved in the loss of space (vertical). It can be clearly seen that the tableless version takes less vertical space when printed, for the same text length :
I'm aware of there is also a vertical space loss at the bottom, but the thing that seemed strange to me was that Word places an empty paragraph before the second table. We can also notice that the border shadows are applied to the column jump according to those belonging to this empty paragraph. This style is visible when printing. It seems contradictory to be able to apply a style on a non-printable character.
@Scott
In order of your point :
1) Yes, this may be necessary to save vertical space for documents (often short) that have to respect a maximum number of pages.
2) I tried it, it works pretty fine :
I was even able to set the paragraph size to 0.7 pts, by selecting the "exactly" option in paragraph line spacing. Thank you for this workaround, I think it meets the initial need for this question.
3) Not very reliable because, as you said, the results depend on the amount of text in the first column. I have tested it a few and this way seems difficult to control the results.
With your two complementary answers I am able to solve my problem on my own, thank you very much.