Delete vs. Backspace in MS Word

Delete vs. Backspace

Work with MS Word tables?

Ever try to remove cells, rows or columns by highlighting them and then hitting the Delete key?

What happened?

Certainly not what you had hoped for, I'm sure. Instead of deleting the cells, only the data is gone.

Now what?

Well, I suppose you could rehighlight the cells and then use the Table menu, Delete submenu, (or for 2007 users it would be the Table Tools, Layout tab of the Ribbon) but who wants to do all that work?

And, yes, I do realize you could have used the Table menu / Layout tab from the beginning, but that just takes too many steps.

So, if we can't use the Delete key to remove cells, what can we use?

Good question and fortunately, I've got an easy answer: Backspace.

Yep, that's it. Next time, highlight the cells, rows or columns and then hit the Backspace key.

If you've highlighted an entire row or column, poof! They're gone, data and all!

If you happened to have highlighted just a few cells, you'll get a handy little window where you can tell Word how to handle the situation.

Make your choice and then click OK.

So, let's recap:

Delete removes just the cell contents.

Backspace removes the cell and its contents.

Delete? Backspace? Now it's all a simple question of how much you want to remove!

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