Cannot resize table columns in word 2013

I was having a similar issue in Office 2016.  Two column table and I could not get the first column to resize down beyond a certain point.  No paragraph marks or anything inside the column.   I was able to resolve it by selecting the column going to Layout (under Table Tools), then Properties, then on the Column table I noticed there was a "Preferred width" option that was checked.  By unchecking it, I was able to get my column to resize down.

Do you need to have different left and right margins, rather than setting the margins equal and setting a Gutter margin.

If for some (strange) reason, you do want such page setup, instead of setting the margins to different values, insert a text box of the appropriate width and of a height equal to the vertical text space into both the Odd and the Even page Headers, with the text set to wrap square around the text boxes.

This is the exact issue we are currently experiencing.  

This issue occurs under the following conditions:

• Office 2016
• In page layout dialog....
  • Odd and Even pages checked.
  • Left and right margins set to different measurements from each other.
  • Multiple pages set to Normal.
• In document View set to Print view.

Table column resizing behaves correctly for tables on primary pages but not for tables on the even pages.  

Sometimes the columns cannot be adjusted at all and at other times dragging a column results in the adjacent column resizing and not the one that was dragged.

I have also noticed that the ruler does not display or behave correctly for the tables on the even pages.  It appears to skew off to one side as if it has a rather large indent/outdent added to it.

If the left and right margins are set equal to each other or the multiple pages in the page layout dialog is set to 'Mirrored Margins' then the tables work as expected.

Workarounds to allow table columns to be adjusted on the even pages include :

• adding a temporary page break to force tables onto a primary page, adjust the columns then remove the page break.
• unchecking the odd & even pages in page layout dialog, adjust the columns then recheck the odd & even setting.
• switching the  view to a different mode, such as outline or normal, adjust the columns then changing the view back.

This is far from ideal and most certainly not a fix to what  evidently appears to be a bug.  And is certainly not something we like to provide to our clients as a solution to the problem.

How can this issue get raised as a bug with microsoft???

I have no problems dragging table borders on my system with Office 2013. I currently don't have Office 2016 installed anywhere, so I can't test that version.

Stefan,

Hello.  I've enjoyed a lot of your helpful hints in the past, but I believe that SDW6 is saying that he cannot drag the column to the desired width by clicking on the border.   He said "table", so that must have been the confusion.  I can't, either.  Has anyone found a workaround for this?  Thank you.