Hi Hammer,
The Drawing Grid settings of Word's Align Objects Feature
(View=>Toolbars=>Drawing
then Draw=>Grid
can appear to be a bit confusing
The main function of the grid is for use in aligning or 'snapping' objects (graphics, shapes, etc) to a uniform spacing on a Word page in Print Layout view.
The functioning part of the 'snap to' grid covers the whole page, but the onscreen *display* of that grid begins at the left margin.
Turning on the 'Use Margins' setting tells Word to figure out and keep track of where *display* of the grid starts and adjusts the grid spacing so that as you change your page margins a grid aligns on the margin. However, toggling Use Margins on/off may result in 'snapped' to grid objects no longer being snapped (i.e. they may not relocate when the grid changes)
See if trying the following steps help illustrate this.
I'm assuming the use of 'inches' as the unit of measure.
1. Start a new blank document and switch to Print Layout view.
2. In Tools=>Options=>View turn on the display of 'Text Boundaries'
This places a non-printing dotted line display around your page at the margin lines.
3. Use File=>Page Setup to change the paper size to 12" by 12" and margins to 1" on all sides (choose [Ignore] if Word wants to fix your printer margins). That gives you a 10" x 10" work area 'inside the margins'.
4. Save the file (name it Square page.doc or whatever you like).
5. On the Standard toolbar click the drawing button to turn on the Drawing Toolbar.
6. From the Drawing toolbar's [Draw] button, go to the Grid...
dialog.
7. In the grid dialog sections set things as follows:
Snap to section
Snap objects to grid - On
Snap objects to objects - On
Grid Origin section
turn on 'Use Margins'
and set
Horizontal origin to 1.00"
Vertical origin to 1.00"
then turn Off 'Use Margins' for now
Display Gridlines on Screen section - On
[on affects Horizontal grid display]
Vertical Every - set to 1 and turn On
Horizontal Every set to 1
[The 'every' in this section refers to how many gridlines to show/skip in the display based on your settings in the 'Grid Settings' section above - for example, 4, would show only every 4th grid line starting from the margin]
8. Click [Okay] to exit Drawing Grid Dialog box (you can also use 'Default...]' before leaving the box if you wish to retain those settings.
9. In View=>Zoom, choose 'whole page'
10. On your screen there should be 10 grids across and 10 grids down, evenly spaced. Visually the margins should appear to be the same size as your grids.
11. Return to the grid dialog and turn off 'Use Margins' and click okay.
The screen should look the same as in step 10.
12. Return to the grid dialog and in the 'Grid Origin' section change the 'Horizontal Origin' to 1.5" and click Okay.
You should see that the first 'box' of grids on the screen is now about 1/2 the width it was before. Basically, the 'grid origin' is now at 1.5" from the edge of the page, and with the margin of the page showing the first grid line is 1/2" in from the 1" margin (= 1.5")
13. Use Tools=>Options=>View and turn off the 'text boundary' choice and note where the vertical gridline display starts relative to the Ruler (View=>Ruler) display of the margins.
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Freelance writer
Hammer321 said:
No matter what values I enter in the Horizontal and Vertical Origin boxes in
the Grid Origin area (after unchecking Use Margins, of course), the grid
continues to cover the entire page rather than starting at the new location.
What am I missing?
I am using Word 2002, Windows XP.>>
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Let us know if this helped you,
Bob Buckland ?
MS Office System Products MVP
Pricing and Packages for '2007 Microsoft Office System'
http://microsoft.com/office/preview
