Unexpected problem with straddling table cells

[Karen Mardahl]

Hi Pat

On 11/17/06, pxenson at comcast.net <pxenson at comcast.net> wrote:
> A client's template currently has Cautions formatted as a three-cell table: The
> Caution icon (in a reference) frame is in the first cell, the word "Caution" (in
> the Autonumbering field of the CautionHead) is in the second, and the writer
> types text in the third.
>
> They want to change to a two-cell table with the icon in the first cell and the
> word "Caution" as a run-in head in the second cell along with the text.
>
> Here's the strange behavior: When you change the CautionHead paragraph to a
> run-in head and straddle the two cells, the run-in head disappears. I'm guessing
> this is because technically that paragraph is empty, having no manually entered
> text, just the word "Caution" from the autonumbering field.
>
> I realize there are other ways to achieve the same look but if the run-in head
> wasn't destroyed by straddling the cells, it would be simpler to convert
> existing Cautions to the new format. Any ideas on how I can get this to work?

My first thought is convert table to text and back again. This simple
trick can save a lot of bother. From what you say, you have
Cell 1: Icon Cell 2: paratag Cell 3: text

Conversion gives you
Icon Tab paratag Tab text
(You can specify that cell divisions are tabs, semi-colons, whatever.)

Then you just remove the second Tab so you have
Icon Tab paratag text

Convert that back to a table, and you should have
Cell 1: Icon Cell 2 paratag text

Marking a table gives you the choice of Table > Convert to Paragraphs...
Marking text block gives you Table > Convert to Table...

Does that help (or make any sense)?

regards, Karen Mardahl