Where Is Table Tools Design Tab In Excel 2010

Excel Table is an amazing feature that makes working with data a lot easier.

And as more advanced tools such as Powe Query and Power Pivot now rely on Excel tables to be the data source, Excel tables are going to become even more important.

But this tutorial is not about the awesomeness of Excel Tables, rather it's about something that a lot of people find frustrating about it – the formatting.

When you convert a data range into an Excel table, Excel automatically applies some formatting to it (you can, of course, customize or remove the table formatting). Also, when you convert an Excel table back to a range, the Excel table formatting stays.

In this tutorial, I will show you how to remove table formatting in Excel and some other customizations you can do with it.

So let's get started!

How to Remove Excel Table Formatting (while keeping the Table)

Suppose I have the dataset as shown below.

Dataset that has tabular data

When I covert this data into an Excel table (keyboard shortcut Control + T), I get something as shown below.

Excel Table created using the dataset

You can see that Excel has gone ahead and applied some formatting to the table (apart from adding filters).

In most cases, I don't like the formatting Excel automatically applies and I need to change this.

I can now remove the formatting from the table completely or I can modify it to look the way I want.

Let me show you how to do both.

Remove Formatting from the Excel Table

Below are the steps to remove the Excel table formatting:

Select any cell in the Excel table
Click the Design tab (this is a contextual tab and only appears when you click any cell in the table)
In Table Styles, click on the More icon (the one at the bottom of the small scrollbar
Click on the Clear option.

The above steps would remove the Excel Table formatting, while still keeping it as a table. You will still see the filters that are automatically added, just the formatting has been removed.

You can now format it manually if you want.

Change the Formatting of the Excel Table

If you don't like the default formatting applied to an Excel Table, you can also modify it by choosing from some presets.

Suppose you have the Excel table and shown below and you want to modify the formatting of this.

Below are the steps to do this:

Select any cell in the Excel table
Click the Design tab (this is a contextual tab and only appears when you click any cell in the table)
In Table Styles, click on the More icon (the one at the bottom of the small scrollbar
Choose from any of the existing designs

When you hover your cursor over any design, you will be able to see the live preview of how that formatting will look in your Excel Table. Once you have finalized the formatting you want, simply click on it.

In case you don't like any of the existing Excel table styles, you can also create your own format by clicking on the 'New Table Styles'. This will open a dialog box where you can set the formatting.

Remove Excel Table (Convert to Range) & the Formatting

It's easy to convert tabular data into an Excel table, and it's equally easy to convert an Excel table back to the regular range.

But the thing that can be a bit frustrating is that when you convert an Excel table to the range, it leaves the formatting behind.

And now you have to manually clear the Excel table formatting.

Suppose you have the Excel table as shown below:

Below are the steps to convert this Excel table to a range:

Right-click on any cell in the Excel table
Go to the Table option
Click on 'Convert to Range'

Click on Convert to Range to change to regular range

This will give you a result as shown below (where the table has been deleted but the formatting remains).

Now you can manually change the formatting or you can delete all the formatting altogether.

To remove all the formatting, follow the below steps:

Select the entire range that has the formatting
Click the Home tab
In the Editing group, click on Clear
In the options that show up, click on Clear Formats

This would leave you with only the data and all the formatting would be removed.

Another way of doing this could be to first remove all the formatting from the Excel Table itself (method covered in the previous section), and then delete the table (Convert to Range).

Delete the Table

This one is easy.

If you want to get rid of the table altogether, follow the below steps:

Select the entire table
Hit the Delete key

This will delete the Excel table and also remove any formatting it has (except the formatting that you have applied manually).

In case you have some formatting applied manually that you also want to remove while deleting the table, follow the below steps:

Select the entire Excel table
Click the Home tab
Click on Clear (in Editing group)
Click on Clear All

Keyboard shortcut to clear all in Excel Windows is ALT + H + E + A (press these keys one after the other in succession).

So these are some scenarios where you can remove table formatting in Excel.

Hope you found this tutorial useful.

You may also like the following Excel tutorials:

Merge Tables in Excel Using Power Query
How to Remove Cell Formatting in Excel (from All, Blank, Specific Cells)
Highlight Rows Based on a Cell Value in Excel (Conditional Formatting)
Highlight EVERY Other ROW in Excel
Search and Highlight Data Using Conditional Formatting