align FL text to bottom right of text box

F

Freelancer BJK

We are using Word here because it can be programmed for variable text. There
is a place in our document where there will sometimes be a logo and sometimes
type spelling out an institution's name in upper and lower case. The type or
logo needs to be positioned in relation to the bottom right of the page, but
the client wants the type to be a flush left paragraph.

In other words, if the institution's name is Microsoft Office, "Microsoft"
would be on one line, "Office" would be on the next line. The M and the O
would line up, flush left to each other (not flush left to the page or the
column or whatever).

Now the end of longest line of each institution (the "t" in "Microsoft" in
this case) must be a certain distance from the right of the page, let's say
..5 in. The baseline of "Office" must be a certain distance from the bottom
of the page, let's say .5 in. again.

We actually figured out a way to do this with a table, but the programmers
say they need it to be a text box. Can it be done?
 
S

SVC

You can create a textbox and then adjust the internal margins. Click Format
TextBox, select the TextBox, and set the right and bottom margins to .5".
You can position your textbox by clicking on the Layout tab, select Square if
you want text to wrap around the textbox, or select In front of text if you
don't, and select the Right button under Horizontal alignment, which will
bring the textbox to the right hand margin line. Then you can move the
textbox down to the right hand corner.
 
F

Freelancer BJK

SVC,

Thanks for taking the time to help us out!

This problem is complex and I don't think I made it clear. There will be
hundreds of these documents generated. The two-line text will vary greatly
in length each time. Even though the text is left-justified, the end of the
longest of the two lines (no matter how long or short) must automatically be
a specified distance from the right of the page.

This would be easy if the text were right-justified. The lines of text
would just automatically extend to the left as needed.
 
F

Freelancer BJK

Suzanne,

Thanks for your reply!

I like your idea. I knew you could put a text box into a table, but I
didn't know you could put a table into a text box.

Unfortunately, the programmers don't feel they can make things work with
tables.
 
F

Freelancer BJK

My apologies. I neglected to mention that we are using Word 2003 on Hewlett
Packard machines running Windows 2000 Professional.

Freelancer BJK said:
We are using Word here because it can be programmed for variable text. There
is a place in our document where there will sometimes be a logo and sometimes
type spelling out an institution's name in upper and lower case. The type or
logo needs to be positioned in relation to the bottom right of the page, but
the client wants the type to be a flush left paragraph.
Click to expand...
etc.
 
S

SVC

Try this to see if this helps:

Right click your text box, select Format text box, select the Text box tab.
Deselect Word wrap text in AutoShape and select Resize AutoShape to fit text.

This will let your text box expand to the left as you enter text and will
grow the text box to match the length of the longest line of text in the box.
 
F

Freelancer BJK

SVC,

We appreciate your help.

I tested your suggestion and with left-justified type the box expands to the
right as the text gets longer. We need it to expand to the left even though
the type is left-justified.

We have found ways to make Word do many things that we didn't think it could
do, but this may be asking too much of the program. I don't think I could do
this in a page layout program (Quark, Pagemaker) or vector drawing program
(Illustrator, Freehand) either.
 
S

SVC

Check one thing to see if this makes a difference.

Format > Text Box, and on the Layout tab select any but In line with text as
the Wrapping style and select Right as the Horizontal alignment. (If I
select In line with text, I get the behavior you have described).
 
F

Freelancer BJK

SVC,

Thanks for your suggestion. I got a chance to test it out today.

When you align the box to the right, it lines up with either the right edge
of the margin, column, or page, according to which you choose. You don't
seem to be able to use absolute positioning. I would guess you control the
position from left to right by choosing margin for it to align to, then
changing the margins.

It almost works! We could make the type be left-justified. As we typed in
a name the letters would appear on the right tucked up to the right side of
the text box and the box expanded to the left as needed. Yay! Until the box
came up against the left hand margin. Then the type broke onto a second line
(a good thing). But now there were several blank letter spaces between the
last word of the first line and the right edge of the text box.

To give an example, say you typed in "Microsoft Word 2003 for Windows".
When you got a few letters into "Windows" the software broke the word onto
the second line. Now "Microsoft" and "Windows"were flush up against the left
hand margin and there was a space about three letters wide between "for" and
the right of the text box.

We had already given up and told the client they would have to settle for
right-justified type. But I was delighted to find your reply because it's
not too late to change things. Unfortunately, most of the names we have to
enter will be two lines long, so this won't work.

But thanks for thinking of us!
 
F

Freelancer BJK

Suzanne,

The programmers said they could not program for a table cell. I think this
project is not just pushing Word to its limits, but pushing all of us here
past the limits of what we have any idea how to do.
 
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