Text Box Moving

[Guy Lydig]

Please explain the seemingly inexplicable movement of text boxes.

I have a table with 7 columns and 21 rows. I want to place a text box over
each column and size and align it exactly with the underlying column. (We are
planning on using Dragon Naturally Speaking to enter text and I want text to
wrap properly without making the rows grow.)

Why, oh why, when I use the mouse or the arrows to move the text box by
clicking its border first, does the text box have a mind of its own.
Sometimes when I press the down arrow it goes down and sometimes it goes up.
If I use the mouse to move it up/down a fraction of an inch, it sometimes
moves much more. I have tried using the Advanced Settings but I clearly don't
know what I am doing--and the ? is less than helpful.

Also, sometimes the text box displaces text in the table while other times
it does not.

If someone can help me understand this behavior, I would be extremely
grateful.

 

[Terry Farrell]

I've replied to the other posting.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Why in the world are you not just using the table itself, with rows set to
an exact height and columns to a preferred width and auto resizing disabled?

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org

 

[Guy Lydig]

1) How do I disable auto resizing?
2) If the row is an exact height and the column a preferred width and auto
resize is disabled, what happens when text is too long to fit in the cell?
Won't it be cut off? I want it to continue into the next cell down.

 

[Terry Farrell]

You cannot wrap text from cell to cell in a table. So you are placing a Text
Box over two cells so that you can enter text across two cells? Why not
merge the two cells instead? But that still won't work because if there is
too much text, it has nowhere to go.

But I am totally baffled as to why you are using Dragon speech to text and
trying to fill either a table cell or a Text Box. Please tell us what you
are trying to achieve. Are you trying to create a fill in form or what?

Terry

 

[Guy Lydig]

Because text cannot wrap from cell to cell in a table is why I want to use
text boxes. I do NOT want to merge the cells because I WANT the lines between
the cells.

Okay, here's what I am trying to do:
I have a form, part of which contains a 7x21 table, that must be filled with
text. Until now, the text was WRITTEN into the form as the intended user
cannot type. Now the user wants to used Dragon Naturally Speaking to enter
the data. The lines on the table must remain. The text must wrap as she
speaks from line to line in one column preserving the underlying table lines.

I created text boxes and cleared the fill and lines but the alignment is
driving me crazy since it does not respond properly to the arrow keys or the
mouse with or without using Control and Alt. I am trying to avoid measuring
each columns vertical and horizontal placement precisely as I am not sure how
accurately I can do it. Also, it seems ridiculous that the movement of text
boxes and drawing objects is so bizarre.

Is there a way for me to paste a picture of the form here?

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

You can disable auto resizing using Table Properties | Table | Options, but
that won't help in your situation as you have further described it.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org

 

[Terry Farrell]

Let me think about that one for a while...

Terry

 

[Doug Robbins - Word MVP]

I would suggest that you position and size the textbox by using the Format
Text Box dialog and for the position, click on the Advanced button on the
Layout tab.

--
Hope this helps.

Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my
services on a paid consulting basis.

Doug Robbins - Word MVP, originally posted via msnews.microsoft.com

 

[Lori H.]

I'm just another Word "user" so someone more knowledgeable may correct this
if I'm wrong, but...

Is it necessary to use a table at all? Sounds like what you really want is
columns, which will "wrap" to the next column. To force the column-ized text
to a specific length on the page (i.e., table row height) Can you use section
breaks (continuous) instead of table rows?

 

[Lori H.]

I almost forgot... to mimic the lines (cell borders), use WordArt lines.
formatted as anything other than "in line with text" they should stay in
place as the columns fill in with text.

 

[Guy Lydig]

My original question: Can someone please explain the seemingly random
movement of textbooks or drawing objects when moved using the mouse or the
arrow keys.

I still do not have an answer to this.

In regard to the previous posts in this thread:

I would like to thank everyone for your responses. Doug, I explained in an
earlier post that I was trying to avoid measuring each column's vertical and
horizontal position which is why I did not want to use the Advanced button on
the Layout tab of the Format Text Box dialog box.

I solved the problem like this:
After I created the table, I zoomed so the entire table appeared on screen.
After taking a screen shot, pasting in a new doc and cropping it as needed, I
copied and pasted the picture in a Header in the document with the table.
(Apparently, in a Header, pictures can take up the entire page but tables can
only take up half a page.) Another strange Word anomaly.

I then resized both "tables" so they were identical. In the real table, I
removed all borders and text. Then I merged each column individually so each
one wraps.

DONE. I don't even want to look at this again.

 

[Lori H.]

Textbox displacing text sounds like the box properties>layout is "in-line
with text" - this could also explain the movement issues, b/c the box is
"snapping" to a place where it is in-line with text (or would-be text, as in
the case of a hard return used for spacing). If youused the "proper
convention" for spacing between paragraphs (paragraph properties), the box
won't sit in that blank space unless you have set it's properties to a
specific distance relative to paragraph.

 

[Guy Lydig]

Lori,
Try creating a table with 5 columns and 3 rows. Then Insert a fairly narrow
Text box
OUT of the frame. Set the Layout to In Front of Text. Now try using the
arrow keys to move the text box and you will get an idea what I mean.

 

[Lori H.]

sorry, it's working fine for me (Word 2007).

Maybe you can figure it out by playing with page layout>align>grid settings?
Personally I've never mastered working with the grid, but there are options
there for "snap to other objects" and "snap to grid" so maybe someone knows
how to utilize that feature(?)

Sorry I couldn't be of help.