Cannot select cells in a table after pasting.

I have a document that I make copies of for different clients.

The original document has a single table that has some hidden borders to make it look like several tables. This has some formatting issues.

So, I copied and pasted the sections I wanted to a new document and from that point on I can only select cells in the last table. All other tables cannot be selected (each pasted section becomes it's own table).

Any idea why this is happening and how to stop it?

The only thing I haven't tried yet is creating the original document from scratch with individual tables because it is quite long.

Paul Black said:

Hello @Wobitancrawfodi,
[1] Is the original document a Template?
[2] If so, have you tried copying the Template document and then amending it, and saving it as another Template?
[3] Have you got a previous version of the document that you could use to see if the same problem exists.

No, it's just a standard word 2016 doc.
I have the original which I couldn't fix spacing and positioning issues with.
The current one which I've now copied 15 times, was from me pasting each section individually.
lol. So now I want to go back and modify some of them I can't select the cells.

I just did a quick test create a table, fill with dummy data, create another table.. rinse and repeat. That works fine. But I can't paste data from either of the other documents. As soon as I do that I can no longer edit anything except the last table.

When I try to select a cell in column 1 table 1 I see a down arrow. It highlights the entire column 1 in table two but nothing is editable. If I select column 2 in table 2 it will highlight all of column 2 in table 3. If I select the last table I can edit it and only it.

I tried copy/paste a range from the original document. There are three options; Keep source formatting, merge formatting or keep text only. The first two produce this result. The last just pastes text without a table.

Yep. That's how I do it.

I am selecting parts of a table, and pasting that selection as a new table in a new document

Hmmm... Perhaps you are right. I will try to explain a little better. Sorry my communications skills are lacking,

I agree with you. They should not have any linkages between them. But they do. Geez, I've never had so many problems with word and excel since I upgraded to 2016.

Ok, I have the original source document which has one big table that spans two pages. Due to the header and footer contents and some images on the second page we couldn't format that table so that the document looked the way we wanted it. Several rows have their border hidden so it "looks like several tables". I'd post the document, but it contains personal information.

To solve the problem with the placement/formatting of each section of the table I highlighted a range of cells in the original document. The first row of that selection contains a merged row which we use for the day of the week. The subsequent selections contain a series of exercises to be performed by the client. (This is a Physical training program).

I then pressed CTRL-C.

Having opened a new document I pressed Enter to drop down a line. I then pressed CTRL-V to paste my selection. The selection pastes as a table. It's not positioned correctly (cells are off the page to the right). so using the + at the top left corner of the table I move it to where I want it.

I then go to the line after the table and press Enter to add another blank line in the document. I am definately ourside the table when I add this blank line.

I then go back to the source document, highlight the next range of cells and press CTRL-C.

I then go back to the new document and insert the content with CTRL-V after the blank line I had added previously. Again, a table is created with some of the content off the page to the right. So using + at the top left of the table I drag it to where I want it positioned.

At this point I have two (what should be) independent tables. But they appear to be linked somehow. If I select any column in the top table the same column in the bottom table will be selected and I cannot edit any cells.

So I tried again with multiple blank lines between tables. Same outcome.

I turned on the display of all formatting marks but there is nothing there that I would not expect to see. Nothing that indicated any link or relationship between the two sets of pasted data.