Harold said:
Can anyone tell me the purpose of frames in MS
Word?
I have not been able to find an explanation as to their purpose. Lots
of stuff showing how to insert them, etc, but no reason why one should
use them.
I do know that they are a royal pain to edit and that any formatting
is lost if you get rid of them.
Harold A. Climer
Dept Of Physics Geology & Astronomy
U.T. Chattanooga
Room 406A Engineering,Math & Computer Sicence Building
615 McCallie Ave.
Chattanooga TN 37403
(e-mail address removed)
From the Help...
The difference between a text box and a frame
Text boxes and frames are both containers for text that can be
positioned on a page and sized. If you are familiar with earlier
versions of Word, you used frames when you wanted to wrap text around a
graphic. Now you can wrap text around a graphic of any size or shape
without first inserting it in a text box or frame. Additionally, you can
use text boxes to manipulate text and take advantage of new graphical
effects. Text boxes provide nearly all the advantages of frames, plus
they provide many additional advantages that frames don't. However, you
must use a frame instead of a text box when you want to position text or
graphics that contain certain items.
Use a text box when you want to do any of the following:
Make text flow from one part of a document to another part by linking
the text boxes.
Create a watermark containing text that appears on the printed pages of
a document.
Format the text container by using the options on the Drawing toolbar.
You can apply 3-D effects, shadows, border styles and colors, fills, and
backgrounds.
Rotate and flip text boxes.
Change the orientation of text in a text box by using the Text Direction
command (Format menu).
Group your text containers and change the alignment or distribution of
them as a group.
Use frames when your text or graphics contain the following:
Comments, as indicated by comment marks.
Footnotes or endnotes, as indicated by note reference marks.
Certain fields, including AUTONUM, AUTONUMLGL, AUTONUMOUT — used for
numbering lists and paragraphs in legal documents and outlines — TC
(Table of Contents Entry), TOC (Table of Contents), RD (Referenced
Document), XE (Index Entry), TA (Table of Authorities Entry), and TOA
(Table of Authority) fields.
When you open a document that contains frames from a previous version of
Word, Word keeps the frames. When you select a frame, the Frame command
appears on the Format menu. To replace a frame with a text box, you can
create a text box by clicking Text Box (Insert menu) and then clicking
in the document to insert a text box of a predefined size (or you can
resize the text box). Use Cut and Paste to insert the contents of the
frame into the text box.
