I have just finished an essay but want to include an appendix at the back. It will consist of two tables showing the wage for munitions workers in England and France during WWI (slightly more info than you probably wanted, I know).

I did a one day excel course 9 years ago and have forgotten everything. How can I make up a table on excel? I have tried to do this but the titles/subjects at the top are quite long and it is stretching the boxes. I can't remember what to do. Can anybody help?
[Rep]

Type your stuff in.
Select everything (control+a).
Format menu / column / autofit selection.
[Rep]

You can change the width of the titles at the top by right-clicking on the appropriate cell and selecting 'Format Cells'. Select the alignment tab and click on 'word wrap'. Save your selection by clicking on OK. Select a width for the column by dragging the right-hand side of the column to the appropriate place (or click on Format, Column, Width in the Menu bar and select a width). Click on Format, Rows, Autofit. That should select a depth for the title column based on the amount of text that you've word-wrapped.

If you need more help, just ask :-)
[Rep]

Thank you very much John and Chikrodah, I will try this out tonight and if I mess it up I'll be back.
[Rep]

You can produce tables in Word. You probably don't need the complexity of a spreadsheet.
[Rep]

Thanks guys, not only do I now remember how to merge cells in excel by practising a bit but I have also discovered that I could do tables on word.:-)(cheers Alex) I had no idea! I think I'm a whiz now.

Anyway, I tried both ways but found it looked neater like this:
[Rep]

And this:


Appendix 1:

London: average weekly wages and earning in April 1918, in fifteen national projectile factories (5,107 men and 12,939 women) and thirty national shell factories (20,750 men and 20,686 women)


Shell Factories Projectile Factories
__________________________________________________ __
Job Wages Earnings Wages Earnings__

Men £ s d £ s d £ s d £ s d
Foremen 4 16 6 6 13 4 5 5 10 6 12 7
Fitters 3 12 0 5 1 8 3 8 5 4 19 8
Turners 3 9 2 5 1 8 3 1 10 6 2 10
Machine operators 2 9 9 3 15 0 2 11 7 4 12 8
Labourers 2 9 0 3 10 0 2 12 6 4 2 6
Average 2 19 3 4 6 6 2 19 1 4 14 8

Women
Forewoman 2 2 1 2 10 10 2 9 8 3 4 2
Tool room workers 1 12 2 1 14 9 1 11 1 1 19 5
Machine operators 1 12 1 2 2 7 1 14 1 3 2 5
Labourers 1 11 4 1 17 9 1 14 1 2 6 3
Average 1 12 8 2 2 4 1 14 8 2 16 8


Ref: Winter, J & J.L. Roberts (1997) Capital Cities at War, Paris, London, Berlin 1914-1919, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pp 278.




Hmmmm, don't worry about that one, it looks neat on word.:-) It's apparently too big for me to attach.
[Rep]

Originally Posted by Cleopatra:
Thanks guys, not only do I now remember how to merge cells in excel by practising a bit but I have also discovered that I could do tables on word.:-)(cheers Alex) I had no idea! I think I'm a whiz now.

Anyway, I tried both ways but found it looked neater like this:

It looks fine as it is.
You have used tab stops to line up the text and that works for you.
If you want to add text to any of the categories or if someone imports it to a different page set up it might not line up the way you intended.
Using a table is possibly a better way to go.
[Rep]

I will practice a bit more with the tables but time is running short. My printers not working but I have sent to my e-mail and have saved it to a memory stick, I don't have to post the essay electronically this time as well as hard copy, they just require a hard copy. It will come out OK if I just press print won't it?.. I mean the downloaded attachment I have, not the second post I made which looks like gobblydook.

Thanks for all the help everyone as I will need to practice tables for future essays.

Oh JC, I tried to send you a rep point for your help but it won't let me as you have received one recently from me. You are in my good books it seems. :-) For the time being.
[Rep]

I just opened it in Open Office Writer and it's looking lovely. Nice job. :-)
[Rep]