Vertically center text in a text box

[Lem]

Here's what I want to do ... and although I can approximate the effect,
I can't find the proper combination of formatting tools to do it right.
Word 2003 (or 2002).

I want to make a tent card, like a place card, by folding my basic stock
in half and printing on the lower half. I'd like a border around the
bottom half at, say, a half inch from each edge. I'd like the text
within the border to be centered both vertically and horizontally.

I start by setting the margins. Assuming that I'm working with regular
letter-size paper, I would set left, right, and bottom to 0.5 and top to
6.

If I then type my text, click the "center" button (or set paragraph
alignment to centered), and set Vertical alignment to "center" in the
Page setup/layout the text is just what I want ... but there's no
border. I can get a border around the text by using carriage returns at
the ends of the lines(shift-enter) and then using paragraph border, but
this border is tight to the text and not to the margins.

If I try Page Border, that ignores the top margin and just puts a border
around the whole page.

I tried using a text box. I can either size the drawing canvas to
approximate the margins I want and make that visible, or I can leave the
drawing canvas with "no line" and make the border of the text box
visible. In either case, I can't figure out how to center the text box
within the drawing canvas, either horizontally or vertically. If I make
the text box itself lie on the 4 margins, I can get the text in the text
box centered horizontally but not vertically.

Any suggestions?

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Although it's doubtless possible to what you want with text boxes, I'd
advise using a table (with exact row height) instead. You can apply a border
to the table cell and center your text in it vertically and horizontally.

If you want to print on both sides of the folded card, use a three-column
table, leaving the center column empty. Rotate the text in the other two
columns. To follow your example, format the document as landscape and use
half-inch margins on the top and both sides; reduce the bottom margin to
allow room for the paragraph that will have to follow the table. Make the
table center column 1" wide and the left and right columns 4.5" wide. The
table row height will be 7.5".

 

[Lem]

Although it's doubtless possible to what you want with text boxes, I'd
advise using a table (with exact row height) instead. You can apply a border
to the table cell and center your text in it vertically and horizontally.

If you want to print on both sides of the folded card, use a three-column
table, leaving the center column empty. Rotate the text in the other two
columns. To follow your example, format the document as landscape and use
half-inch margins on the top and both sides; reduce the bottom margin to
allow room for the paragraph that will have to follow the table. Make the
table center column 1" wide and the left and right columns 4.5" wide. The
table row height will be 7.5".

Thanks. I forgot about tables.

--
Lem -- MS-MVP

To the moon and back with 2K words of RAM and 36K words of ROM.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_Guidance_Computer
http://history.nasa.gov/afj/compessay.htm

 

[grammatim]

Note that in order for your text to appear vertically centered in its
box, it should actually be slightly above the center. You can do this
in a table cell via Tables > Properties > Options (for the whole
table) or Tables > Properties > Cell > Options; set the bottom margin
a bit larger than the top margin.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Agreed. Mathematical centering is never equivalent to visual centering
(which is why I don't use Center vertical alignment for cover pages). As an
alternative to increasing the bottom cell margin, you can also add some
"Space Before" to the paragraph (or last paragraph).

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

Note that in order for your text to appear vertically centered in its
box, it should actually be slightly above the center. You can do this
in a table cell via Tables > Properties > Options (for the whole
table) or Tables > Properties > Cell > Options; set the bottom margin
a bit larger than the top margin.

 

[Lem]

Agreed. Mathematical centering is never equivalent to visual centering
(which is why I don't use Center vertical alignment for cover pages). As an
alternative to increasing the bottom cell margin, you can also add some
"Space Before" to the paragraph (or last paragraph).

There does have to be some tweaking to get this to come out so that it
*looks* right, but now that I have the basic concept of using a table in
landscape orientation with the text rotated, I can do the tweaking
once, set up a template, and then use that for the signs.

Trying to accomplish this using a text box looked like a potential
nightmare.

Much obliged.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

I'm glad that works for you. Another alternative, if it is available to you,
is to do it in Publisher, which allows you to rotate text boxes at any angle
(and I believe they can be vertically centered as well).