Word: aligning numbers in a table by decimal point

[AerBabe]

Erm... okay, so I know how it 'should' work, but it doesn't seem to be. By my understanding, you select the relevant cells, then 'Format', 'Tabs' and select 'Align by decimal'. I'm sure it has worked before, but it's not working now! Any ideas?

[CBLong]

Hi AerBabe,

I've had a play in Word 2000 (version #9.0.7616 SP-3, to be anally precise), and this seems to work...

The trick seems to be to select the entire column of the table before you start; you can do this by putting the mouse pointer right onto the top border of the relevant column of the table so that it (the mouse pointer, not the table) turns into a solid black arrow, pointing downwards. Left-click, and the whole of the column should become highlighted.

Then go into Format, Tabs, select the "Decimal" alignment radio button and enter something in the "Tab stop position" box (ie "2" for a tab at 2cm from the left of the column). Bob's your uncle.

You can also set the tab, and move it around, by clicking on the ruler at the top of your document, but using the Format dialog works...

Good luck!

Chris.

[Tinstaafl]

In W.97 (& presumably the later versions) there's a decimal point tab alignment option.


Make sure you have the rulers displayed. At the far left side of the ruler will be a small box with an 'L', backwards 'L', upside down 'T' or upside down 'T' with a dot.

Each time you click on the icon it will cycled through to the next in the series. Each one represents a type of tab stop.

L = left aligned tab stop
backwards L = right aligned tab stop
inverted T = centre aligned tab stop
inv. T & dot = decimal point aligned tab stop.

Select the cells you wish to have tab aligned. Cycle through the tab types until the 'inv. T & dot' shows. In the ruler bar click on the position where you'd like the decimal point tab stop to occur.

You've now set a decimal point tab stop for each of the highlighted cells. Character to the left of a . will fill in to the left, characters to the right of a . will fill in to the right. No . acts as if there are no characters to the right of the decimal.

[AerBabe]

Thanks for the answers. Unfortunately, my 'manager' decided he was happy with the numbers almost being aligned. The ones in brackets just weren't behaving. :( I'll have a try again on Monday with your suggestions. :ok:

[BOAC]

On a similar topic, I used to use Corel 'Wordperfect' because it had a 'type-setting advance' facility which enabled me to set the position of items EXACTLY in a position on a page - useful for data etc. My WP will not run under W2000, so I use MS word - is this facility there? I cannot find it.