Within table views another export option, Export to Excel spreadsheet, is presented in the table's context menu. This can be useful when you don't want to distribute precise location data. Also, if the recipient's GIS software doesn't support memo fields, an XLS spreadsheet might be more useful than a shapefile since it can store up to 32K characters in a cell. The fixed-length character fields of typical shapefiles are limited to 254 characters.
As when exporting to a shapefile, only the selected (highlighted) rows will be included in the export, the number indicated in the dialog's title. So typically you'll first be right-clicking the table (any row) and choosing Select all. Again, you can sort the table and rearrange or exclude columns prior to invoking the dialog. But in this case there is no "use table layout" option; it will always be used.
If you are exporting memo fields, the program will truncate the text when its length exceeds the limit you specify. In such cases you'll see a dialog like the following when the operation finishes:
