PPT97: PowerPoint Hangs After Changing Word Table Border Style

If you insert a Word Table into a PowerPoint Slide and format the table cells to use the double wavy line border style, it may take a long time to return to PowerPoint. In addition, your computer may stop responding. The more cells in your table, the more noticeable this effect is. If you have a very small table, you may not notice this symptom. If you copy a table that uses this format from Word and paste it into another program, such as WordPad, Microsoft Excel, or Microsoft Publisher, you experience a similar effect.

When you insert a Word table into another program, Word has to convert the table into a picture. Tables that use this particular style of border are very complex and require lots of time and memory to convert.

Do not use this style of border on large tables that you may use in programs outside of Word.

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in the Microsoft products listed at the beginning of this article.