Here are three tables of varying sizes and number of columns. They look fine, they are in the right order and everything seems to be correct.

BUT, look at the following example.

The table below is arranged in its proper place, as part of Regulation 24B, with regulation 25A immediately below it.

Here we have the exact same table with the same two regulations, but…. There’s something wrong, isn’t there?

For some reason, the table has jumped into the row that should rad Regulation 25A. Why? How to fix this?

When you create tables you decide how many rows and how many cells you want.

There are a number of things to do after the table has been created. The first thing to do is go into the Table Properties.

In Word 2010 and 2013 these are found under the Table Tools tab

The Table Properties can be found under the Layout tab, in the group called Table, on the far left of the screen

In Word 2003 they are found under the Table menu.

In all three version of Word, the Table Properties dialog box looks more or less the same

Halfway down the dialog box there is a section called Text wrapping – that is what controls the positioning of the table and its general behavior on the page.

The default is usually None (which means that the table sits on the next empty line of text), but sometimes the tables are set to Around (this means that the text arranges itself around the table) and if that is the option selected, the table will be impossible to arrange and position properly.

Always, check this when you start working on a table, and if, by chance, the table is set to the Around option in Text wrapping, change it to None.