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WD: How to Transpose Rows and Columns in a Word Table

Article ID: 143321

Article Last Modified on 8/17/2005

APPLIES TO

This article was previously published under Q143321

SUMMARY

Word does not have the ability to transpose cells in a table; that is, you cannot use Word to switch the orientation of columns to rows or vice versa. This article describes how to use Microsoft Excel to provide this functionality.

MORE INFORMATION

To transpose the rows and columns of your table, do the following:
  1. Open your Word document, select the table, and then click Copy on the Edit menu.
  2. Start Excel.
  3. In Excel, click Paste Special on the Edit menu, click Paste, select Text, and then click OK.
  4. Select the cells that contain the data that you want to transpose.
  5. On the Edit menu, click Copy.
  6. Select the upper-left cell of the paste area. Choose a blank area of your Excel worksheet.
  7. On the Edit menu, click Paste Special.
  8. Select the Transpose check box, and then click OK.

    This action switches the orientation of data when you paste it. For example, data from the top row of the copied area appears in the left column of the paste area; data from the left column appears in the top row.

    NOTE: If you get a Selection Not Valid error at this point, your paste area contains data. Make sure you select a blank area on your worksheet.
  9. Select the cells with the transposed data and click Copy on the Edit menu.
  10. Switch to Word. Place your insertion point where you want to paste the table.
  11. Click Paste Special on the Edit menu, choose Paste, select Formatted Text (RTF), and then click OK.
Before you use the Transpose command, consider the following:
  • Word tables are limited to 31 columns in Word 6.0 and 7.0, and to 63 in Word 98. If your original table has more than 31 (or 63) rows, and you transpose the rows with the columns, you will get the following error message when you paste the table in your Word document:

    There is not enough memory to complete the operation.

  • If your original table contains tabs, Excel will convert each tab to a new cell. Any text that follows the tab character will be moved to the next adjacent cell. To avoid this problem, replace the tabs with another character--such as the tilde (~)--that doesn't appear in your document. After you transpose and paste the table back into your Word document, replace the tilde character with a tab.
  • If your Word table contains carriage returns, Excel will strip the carriage returns and run your text together with the preceding text. Use the method described in item 2, to replace the paragraph marks.

Additional query words: transpose transposing transposes rotates pivots moves columns rows position

Keywords: kbhowto kbtable KB143321


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