I'm using Word 2010, and I'm working on a guide where contents to be added inside a table of three cells. I have an issue with couple of pages where I couldn't insert the cursor into the left cell to add a text. It works in some of the pages, but not for the others.
I checked the Developer tab to see if any protection is active but nothing. I tried also to copy those tables into a new word, but got same result.
I couldn't find an answer online. So I appreciate your assistance.
29 Answers
I had the same issue, it was a form to fill out but looks like the cells were restricted. (Word 2013 instructions)
Go to the Review Tab, click Restrict Editing, click Stop Protections button.
1If encountering this problem in Word 2016 - known issue after installing KB 3213656 (August 8) or KB 4011039 (September 5).
ISSUE
After installing the August 8, 2017, update for Word 2016 (KB3213656) or the September 5, 2017, update for Word 2016 (KB4011039), you may encounter the following issues:
If you merge vertical cells in a table, the cell content disappears, and you can’t select the merged cell.
If you open an existing document that has a table with merged cells, the cells will appear to be blank.
This issue occurs only for those who receive Office 2016 updates using Windows Installer technology (MSI). If you have a Click-to-Run edition of Office, such as Office 365 Personal, you won’t encounter this issue.
WORKAROUND
As a workaround, you can uninstall both KBs and your tables will return to normal. We anticipate releasing the fix for this issue in the next monthly update, tentatively scheduled for October 3, 2017.
Follow the steps below on how to uninstall an update on Windows 10:
- Close Word 2016.
- Select the Start button. Go to Settings > Update & security > Update history > Uninstall updates.
- Look for KB3213656 and KB4011039.
- Select the updates and then click Uninstall.
- Click Yes or enter the administrator password to proceed with the removal process.
- Wait for the process to complete.
I had this problem as well. It was caused by the cell margins being set larger than the cell width. Try going to the Table Properties, then the Cell tab and select Options. Then reduce the cell margins.
This happened to me in Word 2007. For some reason the font in that cell had re-sized itself to 0.5 (just for that cell!). Click in the area of the cell and increase font size.
You can solve this as follows:
- Turn on paragraph marks, then
- Delete a paragraph mark or two in the same column on the preceding page
The problem with my file was that Word had arbitrarily set the point size to 0.5 in all the empty cells. Once I reset the point size to 10, I could enter text.
Adding an additional column in a Word table caused no left/right margin in the cell. I highlighted the cell, I went to Table Tools>Layout>Cell Size Select "Cell" and Options. Put in the cell margins as preferred e.g. 0.19
My table span was over 4 pages with only 1 page being affected. I put the cursor in the column I was having trouble inserting text and right clicked and under Table Properties check the column size. I did this on several pages and realized that the one I could not edit had sizes for the columns on that page, but the other ones were dithered at a whole size of 10.1. Also I preview my pages at 50 % to only focus on the columns and this help me realize when I had clicked the column that had the problem it highlighted the following page. I turned on the paragraph marker and notice I had a hard return at the top of the page with the problem column, so I deleted it and at the bottom of that page I place a page break to move the border row back to the top of the next page. This was definitely one I had seen before.
Install KB 4011140 from the Microsoft Website. It worked for me.
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