A step-by-step guide to professional-looking tables

Tables are a staple of many business documents – from management accounts to a marketing plan or an activity update. And most people know how to create a table in Word.

What you may not know is how easily you can take your tables from basic (and boring) to impressive and eye-catching.

Transform your tables

Tables in published journals usually look far superior to those in the average business document.

But it is perfectly possible to transform Word’s default tables into ones that are every bit as impressive as those produced by the big publishers. And in doing so, you can really lift your documents, to make them much more engaging.

You can do this without stepping outside of Word. And – here’s the best bit – you don’t need a degree in graphic design or to be a Microsoft Office ninja to do so. Far from it.

Watch the video to see how you can transform your tables, step by step:

This post is taken from a lesson in our online-training programme Emphasis 360, which improves your writing in practical, bite-sized weekly lessons. You can find out more about Emphasis 360 and preview more lessons for free here.

Image credit: Your Design / Shutterstock

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Author: Rob Ashton

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Rob Ashton is the founder of Emphasis and posts mainly about writing and the brain – a topic he's been researching for seven years. You can read more of his work in Writing Matters – our weekly bulletin of career-building writing advice backed by science.