5 Steps to Convert a Word Table to Microsoft Excel

Although Microsoft Word has definitely improved its functionality for dealing with numbers and tables over the years, there are times when you need the advanced functionality of Microsoft Excel.

The very idea of copying and pasting walls of text, not to mention the formatting, might be enough to make your toes curl. This article is here to help make the process of converting a Word table to Excel that much easier.

Why Convert a Word Table to Microsoft Excel?

Microsoft Word can handle relatively simple tables and basic graphs, but when it comes to in-depth data analysis, powerful functions, filtering tools, and effective formatting, Excel is clearly on another level. Excel is built to handle large sets of data and complex calculations, whereas Word is primarily a word processor, after all.

So, if you need your tables to have an extra touch of professionality, or are frustrated by the lack of options in the “Table Design” and “Table Layout” tabs in Word, then it might be time to send your table over to Excel.

5 Steps to Converting Your Table

The problem with copying tables from Word into Excel lies in their formatting. A simple copy paste from Word to Excel can cause chaos if done incorrectly. However, the correct way to do it is quite simple, provided you follow the right steps:

1. In Microsoft Word, select all the content in your table that you want to convert by click dragging your mouse over the content, or clicking the Move icon (four arrows) in the top left corner of the table.
2. Copy your text, either via the keyboard (press Ctrl C) or via right clicking the text and choosing “Copy” from the context menu. Your content will be copied to the clipboard.
3. In Excel, select the cells to paste your Word table into by click dragging over them. To maintain the formatting, it’s crucial that the number of rows and columns you select in Excel match those of your Word table exactly.
4. Right click the highlighted cells to bring up the context menu. Instead of “Paste”, select “Paste Special.”
5. From the “As” options, choose “Text” to insert your Word table as plain text (i.e. all formatting removed) for the smoothest transition.
6. Click “OK.”

Your text will be inserted and you can then set about formatting it by adjusting column widths, wrapping text, adding cell borders, and so on.

Other Conversion Methods

Here are two other ways to make the transition between the two Office programs:

Convert the Entire Word Document

Suppose you have a large Word table that can’t be copied across as simply as in the method above. In this case, you can save the entire document as plain text before importing it into Excel. Here’s how to do it:

1. First, you’ll need to save a version of your word document as plain text. To do this, press F12 to open the “Save As” window.
2. Below the “File Name” dialog box, you’ll see “Save as type.” Choose the format “Plain Text (.txt)” from the drop-down menu, and then save the file in your desired folder.
3. In Excel, navigate to the “Data” tab and select “Get External Data.”
4. From the drop-down menu, select “From Text” and choose the text file you just saved.
5. Follow the Wizard’s steps to choose your settings and import the document.

Converting Text Into a Table

If your Word content is formatted but has not yet been placed in a table, you can do the conversion into a table in Excel. You’ll need to start by converting the content to a tabular form in Word. Here’s how:

1. In your Word file, select the text to convert into a table by click dragging over it.
2. Navigate to the “Insert” tab and click the “Table” option.
3. Click “Convert Text to Table” from the drop-down menu that appears.
4. The “Convert Text to Table” window will appear. Decide how many rows and columns your selected content will need, and choose how the tool should separate the text (by paragraph, commas, tabs, or other delimiters).
5. Click “OK” to convert the text.
6. Press F12 to open the “Save As” window and save your document as a “Plain Text (.txt)” file.
7. In Excel, go to the “Data” tab, choose “Get External Data,” and select the “From Text” option. Alternatively, you can copy the table and paste as text in Excel.
8. Once your content has been imported, you can format and edit the cells as needed.

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