Save a Table But Clear Its Contents

Q. Often, after spending time creating a complex table design in Word, I’d like to save it for future use, but it’s a daunting task to erase all the old data one box at a time. I wish there were an easy way to do that.

A. There is a simple way—it involves one button. Highlight as much, or as little, of the table data you want to erase, and then press Delete.

So, for example, you start out with a table loaded with data such as the one below.

Afterward, you want to keep the names and the sales areas, but erase the dollar amounts. So highlight just the dollar amounts…

and press Delete.