The column widths has been driving me to distraction too. There seems to be no rational on when Word tries to help. I have tables constructed in the same way in eaDocX on different stereotypes in the same document, same styles and table styles, same column widths. On one stereotype (a custom stereotype of Class) the widths are always output consistently and the requested cell alignment is observed (top), on other stereotypes (custom stereotypes of Activity) the column widths change for the contents and the cell text is vertically centred. Makes no sense to me at all.
I’m learning to ignore the detrimental impact it has on the documents. There are just too many tables to change them all individually, and Word doesn’t seem to offer the option of selecting all tables or all instances of a table style. If anyone knows how to multi-select tables in Word 2007 I’ll be forever in your debt!
Regarding table width, on my recent documents I’ve standardised on a total of 575 pixels across all columns, using a table style that centres the whole table on the page. Thus far all my tables are outputting at the same width (15.21 cm) in perfect alignment. It’s just slighly less than my margins, but looks fine.
