I've always found it very tricky to use, but perhaps your discovery is the
reason. I'll have to experiment with that. The only reason I ever use it is
to merge a whole column of cells. In earlier versions of Word, if you
selected two adjacent columns and merged them, Word sensible merged each
pair of cells. In current versions it merges the whole two columns into one
big cell (not very helpful), but if you use the eraser you can get the
desired effect. Since I rarely have borders on my tables, the only effect I
was going for was "erasing" the cell boundary.
The eraser works in tandem with the Draw Table (pencil) button to create
sort of freehand tables. The most messed-up tables I've ever seen were
created this way, so I advise avoiding it.
--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
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