The default table is aligned to the left margin. You have three alignments: left, center and right. You can apply specific alignments or indent the table. When you have a table that doesn’t spread from the left to the right margin, you might want to align it. SEE: Checklist: Securing Windows 10 systems (TechRepublic Premium) Alignment options The resized table is a better fit, and you could easily stop here, if you don’t want it aligned differently.

Simply drag up and to the left to decrease the width of the table and the width of each cell.

Hover the mouse over the one at the bottom-right corner and your mouse will turn into a double-arrow.

Doing so will display two handles ( Figure B): one in the top-left corner and one in the bottom-right corner. Your eyes try to take in the entire table at once instead of reading the content. There’s not enough text to fill the cells, and it looks odd. The first thing you might want to change is the width. And, there are several ways you can align a table across the horizontal plane between the left and right margins. When you insert a table or convert text into a table, Word positions it between the left and right margins ( Figure A) – you can easily change this. SEE: Microsoft 365: A cheat sheet (free PDF) (TechRepublic) The default table You can work with your own file or download the demonstration. I’m using Microsoft 365 on a Windows 10 64-bit system, but you can use earlier versions, and you can align tables in Word Online. In this article, I’ll show you several ways to align a table the way you want. What if you want the table centered or even flush to the right margin? The good news is that realigning a table is easy. For instance, the default alignment is offset from the left margin. Inserting a table in Microsoft Word is a simple task, but the default won’t always be exactly what you want. When inserting a table in a Word document, you can stick with the default alignment or change it in any number of ways. How to control a Word table’s horizontal alignment

Display table cell margin