Word tables that do not have merged columns or merged rows are the easiest to
import into excel.
Excel will usually break apart the contents of a word table cell when the
table cell contains a hard or soft paragraph character <enter or
shift+enter>. When Excel finds these characters it creates a new row. A soft
paragraph <word wrapping> doesn't bother excel, provided the contents of the
word table cell do not exceed the maximum allowable limit for text characters
in an Excel cell.
Similar problems can occur when a word table columns are merged. Excel will
sometimes create an extra column.
Excel can also reformat number data from the word table as dates.
If your word tables have merged columns or rows, then the only way that I
know of to ease the import into excel problems is to select and paste
individual columns or rows into excel. If a single word table cell contains
multiple paragraphs then excel will past each paragraph as a seperate cell.
There are other methods that are more involved, convert the word table to
delimited text, etc.
