Indenting part of a paragraph...

M

Marcus Fox

There is a question that says "Inset this text from the left margin at least
35mm but no more than 50mm across and at least 60mm but no more than 75mm
down." I have tried using tabs but it seems to do either one line or the
whole paragraph.

The teacher of the class was not able to help. The closest solution I was
able to render was to insert a rectangle of that specified size tight with
the text so it was wrapped around it, and set the colour of the rectangle
border to "no line".

Is there an easier solution, or is that it?

Marcus
 
S

Suzanne S. Barnhill

Without your description, I would have assumed that the instructions
described a left indent and Space Before.
 
J

Jay Freedman

That's it.

In Word, each formatting property is associated with some level of
detail (from largest to smallest, the levels are document, section,
paragraph, sentence, word, and character). Indenting is a
paragraph-level property. You can tell Word to indent the first line
of a paragraph differently than the other lines, but that's the limit
of the flexibility.

Thus, to indent some selection of lines that aren't either a full
paragraph or the first line of a paragraph, you need to use the
wrapping capabilities of some drawing object. It could be an AutoShape
(rectangle or any other shape), a text box, a frame, or a table with
text wrapping turned on. Any of these can be made invisible by setting
the line color appropriately.

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the
newsgroup so all may benefit.
 
M

Marcus Fox

Suzanne S. Barnhill said:
Without your description, I would have assumed that the instructions
described a left indent and Space Before.
Click to expand...

Yes, but the paragraph as typed is more than 60mm deep, and after this
indent, needs to become aligned at the left margin once again. The best I
could do was to have it wrap around an object of those given dimensions.

Marcus
 
M

Marcus Fox

Jay Freedman said:
That's it.

In Word, each formatting property is associated with some level of
detail (from largest to smallest, the levels are document, section,
paragraph, sentence, word, and character). Indenting is a
paragraph-level property. You can tell Word to indent the first line
of a paragraph differently than the other lines, but that's the limit
of the flexibility.

Thus, to indent some selection of lines that aren't either a full
paragraph or the first line of a paragraph, you need to use the
wrapping capabilities of some drawing object. It could be an AutoShape
(rectangle or any other shape), a text box, a frame, or a table with
text wrapping turned on. Any of these can be made invisible by setting
the line color appropriately.
Click to expand...

Okay, is it possible in some way to specify the size of the drawing object
in a dialog or similar, rather than having to compare it up against the
ruler on the screen in Word? Which drawing object should I use?

Marcus
 
S

Suzanne S. Barnhill

What I meant was that the words "at least 60mm but no more than 75mm down"
don't make any sense in connection with "from the left margin," so I would
have taken them to mean "from the preceding paragraph" or "from the top
margin" or whatever.
 
J

Jay Freedman

Okay, is it possible in some way to specify the size of the drawing object
in a dialog or similar, rather than having to compare it up against the
ruler on the screen in Word? Which drawing object should I use?

Marcus
Click to expand...

I'd use the rectangle tool from the Drawing toolbar, as it's probably
simplest (but not by much).

After drawing the rectangle to approximately the right size,
right-click it and select Format AutoShape. In that dialog:

- On the Colors & Lines tab, set "no line".
- On the Size tab, set the size you want.
- On the Layout tab, set the wrapping to Tight and the horizontal
alignment to Left. Then click the Advanced button; make sure the
vertical alignment is set to 0 relative to Paragraph, and that Move
With Text is checked.

The other objects I mentioned have similar but not identical dialogs.

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the
newsgroup so all may benefit.
 
M

Marcus Fox

Suzanne S. Barnhill said:
What I meant was that the words "at least 60mm but no more than 75mm down"
don't make any sense in connection with "from the left margin," so I would
have taken them to mean "from the preceding paragraph" or "from the top
margin" or whatever.
Click to expand...

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Where "aaaaaaaaaaaaa" is ordinary typed text with spaces. The space starts
where the instruction to add it is indicated, can be where the paragraph
starts or in the middle of the paragraph.
 
M

Marcus Fox

..aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
..aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
..aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
...........................aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
aa
...........................aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
aa
...........................aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
aa
...........................aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
aa
...........................aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
aa
...........................aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
aa
..aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
..aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
..aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
..aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Hmmm, first attempt didn't work, i'll try again. Whitespace indicated by
"............."

Marcus
 
M

Marcus Fox

Jay Freedman said:
I'd use the rectangle tool from the Drawing toolbar, as it's probably
simplest (but not by much).

After drawing the rectangle to approximately the right size,
right-click it and select Format AutoShape. In that dialog:

- On the Colors & Lines tab, set "no line".
- On the Size tab, set the size you want.
- On the Layout tab, set the wrapping to Tight and the horizontal
alignment to Left. Then click the Advanced button; make sure the
vertical alignment is set to 0 relative to Paragraph, and that Move
With Text is checked.

The other objects I mentioned have similar but not identical dialogs.
Click to expand...

Yeah, it's easy enough to do in Word 2000, but in Word XP, a poxy "create
your drawing here" box appears, and shifts the text around. Can I disable
that somehow?

Marcus
 
S

Suzanne S. Barnhill

Tools | Options | General: clear the last check box for "Automatically
create drawing canvas..."
 
J

Jay Freedman

Yeah, it's easy enough to do in Word 2000, but in Word XP, a poxy "create
your drawing here" box appears, and shifts the text around. Can I disable
that somehow?

Marcus
Click to expand...
Yes. In Tools > Options > General, uncheck the box for "Automatically
create drawing canvas when inserting AutoShapes".

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the
newsgroup so all may benefit.
 
M

Marcus Fox

Jay Freedman said:
Yes. In Tools > Options > General, uncheck the box for "Automatically
create drawing canvas when inserting AutoShapes".
Click to expand...

Thank you all.

Marcus
 
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