In a Word table I have a single column of words that I'd like to convert to text as a horizontal string of words each separated by a comma and a space (as FOLLOWS):  

alaska, bolide, camera, digital, etc

When I do the "Convert Table to Text" and request it to separate the text with a comma, I get a vertical listing of the words with no comma or space (as follows):  

alaska
bolide
camera
digital
etc

What simple thing am I missing here, and how might I solve this one?

Thanks in advance for your advice!

DennisI don't think you're missing anything.  It simply will not work the way you want.  

If this is something you need to do on a recurring basis, you could record a macro that will speed up the PROCESS of adding a comma at the end of a word, hitting the space bar, hitting the DELETE key to bring the word below up on the same LINE, and then moving the cursor to the end of the next word to start the sequence again.  I would assign a keyboard SHORTCUT to the macro so that you can run it by simply hitting the right keys.  Use search and replace (Ctrl+H).  Search for ^p (that's the code for a paragraph mark).  Replace with a comma followed by a space.  Job done.