Cannot resize table columns in word 2013

Anonymous
2015-01-15T19:51:53+00:00

I have just recently started using MS Office 2013. In the past, it was EASY to create a table and then highlight a column and hover over the vertical line between columns, the mouse pointer would change to the nifty little arrow line arrow pointer, and then you could drag the column and change its width. it was easy, intuitive, simple, -- a total no-brainer.

Now in Word 2013, that no longer works. I cannot drag the column widths, and I cannot change the width at all for the columns in my table.

I have looked for settings in many places, but I cannot seem to get the table to allow me to drag and resize the columns in any way.

It is very annoying that such simple intuitive functionality from past versions does not work anymore in Office 2013, Word 2013.

Stefan's answer is only a partial answer. no idea why the tables were locked, but the long urls was a side issue related issue.

Microsoft 365 and Office | Word | For home | Windows

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

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  1. Anonymous
    2016-03-03T21:59:09+00:00

    Aha!  I found a solution to my problem.  I have my page set up for duplex, therefore different odd and even pages and mirror margins.  I found that I can adjust table columns just like always when it's on the ODD page, but as soon as I try to adjust anything on the EVEN page, they don't work no matter what I do.  

    My solution was to insert a page break to force to an odd page, adjust table, then remove my page break.  

    Does anyone else have this issue?  If so, did you find a better way to solve it?  I'm using Word 2016, though I have had the trouble in the past, however I hadn't connected it to duplex page setup, so I'm not certain that it was the issue while using 2010 or 2013.

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  2. Anonymous
    2015-01-16T20:26:32+00:00

    Dear Buzz, it drove me nuts for an afternoon. I have no idea what is going on with tables in word 2013.

    If you right click on the table and select "distribute columns evenly"

    this will do something to make the table such that you can then drag things and have them stay where you drag them. 

    Strangely, I could not get any new tables to misbehave after I did that. it was extremely odd and frustrating to not be able to drag and resize the table columns.

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  3. Anonymous
    2016-01-14T16:50:13+00:00

    I add a bit of information. On 4K screen it is often impossible to resize columns even after having disabled "Update document content while dragging".

    The problem seems due in somewhat to the screen resolution. You could try to enlarge the zoom to better catch the sensitive point.... NO! You have to REDUCE the zoom and then magically you can resize as you want!

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  4. Anonymous
    2015-01-15T21:39:35+00:00

    When the text in the cell is very wide, such as  along url, the url text cannot be wrapped. Is there any way to get the table to allow the width to be smaller than the width of the url or long single word - i cannot get it to wrap.

    Initially I was seeing that the table column could not be resized at all. nothing would work, the table layout was frozen and could not be changed at all. 

    I cannot seem to recreate the situation where i cannot drag the columns at all anymore.

    I selected "distribute columns evenly" and after that, the behavior of not being able to resize at all is gone. I cannot get it to do that anymore.  i could not make any column bigger or smaller. now i can resize the columns, but i cannot make the url text (like one long word) wrap. the column will not go any smaller than the width of the url i have pasted in the cell

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  5. Anonymous
    2015-01-16T20:18:12+00:00

    I'm having this issue too.  I have a 2 column table.  I can resize the width of the left column down to 1.87" by dragging with my mouse but it will not go narrower than that.  I went to Table Properties and manually changed it to 1.5", but it bounced back to 1.87".  I then unclicked Preferred Width in Table Properties and tried again, but no dice.  I have no long words or strings that are blocking this.  It's just not working.   What's the solution, Microsoft?????

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