Let’s say you created a frequency table using one of the methods from 3 Excel Methods for Creating a Frequency Table. The below image shows a frequency table using the pivot-table method (Method 3).
How could we create an APA-style table based on the Excel table (pivot table)?
Step 1: Copy and paste the pivot table onto a new worksheet.
When you paste the pivot-table-based frequency table, choose the paste option of “Values.” (with the icon that has 123). Specifically, after you copy the raw pivot-table-based frequency table, move to a new worksheet and right-click. Then, you would see a few paste options as shown below. Choose the “Values” option (the icon has 123 on it).
By choosing this paste option, you will keep only the letters and numbers without importing the ‘pivot-table’ format. That is, you will keep only the contents of the pivot table.
Note, even if you accidentally copied and pasted the pivot-table-based frequency table, you can still change the paste option by clicking the (Ctrl) icon (shown below).
If you click the (Ctrl) icon, then it will show some paste options. Then, choose the “Values” option.
Step 2: Once you have the contents of the tables, then, do the basic formatting following the instructions below. The order does not matter.
(a) Expand the columns so that you can see the column labels. To do so, first, select the columns that you want to adjust the width so that you can see the whole labels (or other contents). Then, move the cursor on the vertical border of any of the selected column’s heading and double click. Then, the columns widths will be adjusted so that all the contents of the cells can be shown. In case some cells have very length contents, you may see a single column covering the entire screen. Then, undo (ctrl + z) what you just did and adjust all the column widths one by one (by moving the cursor at a vertical border of each column’s heading and dragging it). Or, after you expand all the column widths selectively shrink the width of too-wide columns.
(b) Align cell values in the middle (this refers to the vertical position of the contents in each cell among the top / middle / bottom alignment options) and center the cell values (this refers to the horizontal position of the contents in each cell among the left / center / right alignment options). To do so, select the whole table area and click the two options shown below.
(c) Draw the “Top & Bottom” borders for the first row with column headings. (Note, APA style does not allow vertical lines in tables.) To do so, select the first row with column headings and click the Table Border menu and select the Top and Bottom Border option (see below). Note, you may not be able to see the top border as it is overlapped with the Excel’s column headers’ bottom border. But no worries, if you chose the top and bottom border, then, your first row has a top border.
Do the same (drawing the top and bottom border) with the bottom row that shows the grand total or sum (if there are any such cells showing the total or sum). Note, APA style does not allow using borders around every cell in the table. You need the top-bottom borders only for the column headings, column spanners, and total-row (for more details, see APA Style: 7 How to Format & Present Tables (p. 195))
Step 3: Finally, if you copy and paste the table onto your MS Word manuscript, the table would look like this:
You may need to adjust the column width so that it looks like this:
To adjust the column width in MS Word, move the cursor near where the column’s vertical border would be. Then, the cursor would show two horizontal arrows along two vertical lines as shown below:
Then, you can adjust the (left) column’s width by left-clicking and dragging the cursor.
This looks pretty good. But when you copied and pasted the excel table it might have lost some formatting details such as the middle alignment. Then, you may need to do the center or middle alignment of the cells again. To do so, select the whole table (or the cell you need to modify) and right-click and select table properties.
Then, select the “Cell” tab and select the “Center.”
