This is totally wierd.
There's no way to select or block a cell, unless you are selecting more than
one cell.  For what it's worth, selecting more than one cell, makes the cell
indents disappear on the ruler.   If I change the indent to 0 on two cells,
select them then paste to other cells, it's ineffective!

This is driving me crazy.  Your suggestion makes sense, it was the first
thing I tried but was an exercise in futility.
Thanks for suggesting it though.
Diana

Cowtoon wrote:

If you remove one indent from a cell and then block that cell, it can
be picked up by the Format Painter(paint brush) by double clicking on
that cell. To baste the other cells with this fine flavor, click on
them.

Hi Luc,
I'm sorry to say that your method doesn't work for me.  I had already tried
that ... doesn't even work for one cell.

It seems to be the inside margin/indent that's at play.  what you suggested
works with a word cell/table, but this Powerpoint table seems to be a
different animal.   If it helps, I'm "not" inserting a "Word" table ... I'm
inserting the table that comes with Powerpoint and it behaves rather
differently (which is good and bad).

If I explain it this way, it might help (but maybe not).  In word, it would
comparable to paragraph formatting vs. the page setup margins.
Diana

Cowtoon,
Select your table (click on the border), in the table toolbar click on table
choose borders and fill colour, select textbox tab, set your margins for a
textbox and hit OK.