Excel Table : moving a column messes up with the width of other columns

[DenitrificationRemote]

- OS : MacOS and Windows (tested on both)
- Excel version : 16.64

- Issue
When I do SHIFT + drag & drop a column within an Excel Table (it's NOT a Pivot Table, it's a normal Table), it will mess up with the column widths. It doesn't behave like this when it's not a Table.

- Screenshots of the issue
A) Initial state
B) Press SHIFT and drag and drop column to move it somewhere else
C) Final state : The width of many columns has changed

Is that a bug or a feature?

 

[cmowla]

I don't know if Microsoft classifies it as a bug (there could be "logic" to it), but it (columns don't maintain their width in Excel Tables when you try to move one) definitely has been happening to me since I started playing with Excel tables in Office 2016.

I actually wrote a "column swap, column mover, and column shuffler" (the column "shuffler" will reorder columns that you select in the order that you select them, and move them to the right of a destination column that you select) for Excel Tables so that it would preserve the column widths and make moving columns easy.

(So you're not alone.)

 

[DenitrificationRemote]

Ok, good to know I'm not alone here.

I posted the issue on reddit and a guy sent an interesting animation showing that you can also move just the Table columns (instead of the sheet columns). It still changes the width of columns but in a more "logical" way.

https://www.reddit.com/r/excel/comments/xetot7

I also posted the question on the microsoft forum : Redirecting

 

[Pippie4trnc]

I found a simple work around.
Highlight any column in your existing table, right click on it and click copy.
Click on the header of the column to the right of the column where you want to insert a new column, right click and choose to insert those cells just copied.
If you were inserting a column say, to the beginning of your existing table, that column is now currently sitting outside your table.
Click 'Table Design' on the menu bar and choose 'Resize table'. Then reassign the correct top left cell, eg instead of B1-G360, change it to A1-G360.

Hope that helps.