Font sizes within Word tables shrink

Make sure that the font settings in the table style matches those of the Normal style and the document defaults; that way, applying (custom) paragraph styles to text in the table cells should work fine.

Edit: Re-reading the original message, it seems more likely that different programs interpret the formatting differently. When pasting content into the body of an e-mail, you can never be certain how it appears to the recipient.

As far as Read Mode is concerned, note that it isn't a what-you-see-is-what-you-get view. Rather, its purpose is to make text easier to read on the screen.

hey Shane, thanks for your reply. This is what it looks like in reading view. I zoomed the text size just to show how the table text does not scale at all. this is using the exact same style in and out of table. Oddly, on my phone, the text in and out of the table looks the same. (i started with a blank doc, using the default styles - nothing that i've created on my own.) Now i just need to figure out why it works for this document but not for the altered-styles doc i've created.

I don’t think there is any setting style inside the table to do the changes.

Since the issue is with specific document you can try creating a new document with different styles and check if the same thing happens.

Text formatting is defined in a complex hierarchy in Word: document default settings (in the Manage Styles dialog box), font settings in the table style, the Normal style (which is the "parent" style which most other styles are based on), and then direct font formatting applied to individual text ranges.

Here's the Modify Style dialog box for a table style:

The "Apply formatting to" drop down determines which part of the table is affected by the setting.