SmartTable Delete

A Free Document Productivity Tool for Word

This tool is one of a set that provides advanced features for adding, deleting and moving rows in Word tables. It is a companion tool to SmartTable Insert described in the previous post.

A full list of all the SmartTable tools can be found here.

SmartTable Delete

SmartTable Delete uses the current context to decide what to delete.  It sounds like there are lots of rules but in reality its intuitive based on where the cursor is and what is selected.

Rules Applicable When In a Table

If you are in an table and you hit the shortcut key:

• When an entire row is selected, the row is deleted. You can select multiple rows and delete them together.
• When the cursor is in an empty cell, the row is deleted.
• When a range of cells are selected, the contents are deleted.

Rules Applicable Anytime (In a Table or Not)

If you hit the shortcut key:

• When some text is selected, the text is deleted.
• When the cursor is sitting in some text, the text to the end of the sentence or paragraph is deleted.

The last rule is interesting - and yes... I agree I need to get out more.

Often I want to delete the remainder of the text in a bullet point. If I use the normal Word
features, deleting the text deletes the end of paragraph marker and pulls the next line up. Using SmartTable Delete, the text is deleted, but the next bullet point remains where it was.  Press the shortcut key again and the next line does come up.  

Similarly, if I adjust the ending of a sentence, I want to delete all text up to the start of the next sentence.  SmartTable Delete does this, but if you press it again it keeps deleting by sentence.

Shortcut Key Assignment

The shortcut key is:
• dpSmartTableDelete: Control+Delete

 See here for instructions on assigning keys.

Inspiration 

The standard table row delete function is a little clunky to use and I wanted to provide a companion tool for  for SmartTable Insert that also used a single shortcut key.  

Word has lots of ways of selecting and deleting text. Sometimes it is easy to forget which to use.  SmartTable Delete means you have just one key for almost all everyday situations.

I have also found this tool useful when recording information in tables interactively during workshops.

Summary

SmartTable Delete allows me to quickly delete content and I use it constantly throughout my day.  I hope you will enjoy using it too.

The Downloads tab contains a copy of SmartTable Delete. There is more information on how it works in the release notes.