Arrows over tables

[Mary Lee]

I recently got Word 03. I have large technical manuals, and I use a single row, 2-column table with text in one and a graphic in the other. I use arrows when necessary to point to the exact place on the graphic from the instructions in the text. This was working well. When I got 03, the relationship between the text and the arrows is different. If I try to move them, they disappear. I have to cut and paste them and then I can adjust them, but then the text moves from where it was. There is some kind of relationship between them I'd like to break
Thanks.

 

[Cindy M -WordMVP-]

Hi =?Utf-8?B?TWFyeSBMZWU=?=,

I recently got Word 03. I have large technical manuals, and I use a single row, 2-column table with text in one and a graphic in the other. I use arrows when necessary to point to the exact place on the graphic from the instructions in the text. This was working well. When I got 03, the relationship between the text and the arrows is different. If I try to move them, they disappear. I have to cut and paste them and then I can adjust them, but then the text moves from where it was. There is some kind of relationship between them I'd like to break.

1. From which previous version did you upgrade?

2. Can you please describe what the text is doing differently? Is it "flowing around" the arrow, or?

3. What is the layout formatting of such an arrow?

Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Sep 30 2003)
http://www.word.mvps.org

This reply is posted in the Newsgroup; please post any follow question or reply in the newsgroup and not by e-mail

 

[Mary Lee]

Cindy, thanks for responding

1. From which previous version did you upgrade? Word 9

2. Can you please describe what the text is doing differently? Is it "flowing around" the arrow, or?

Two things. In most cases I have the text left jusitified, centered top-to-bottom, and it makes the text go to the top. I have to put space above to get it to move down again. The other thing is having the arrow just disappear when I try to move it. I have also had new arrows behave the same way. Our internal help desk could not figure it out, either

3. What is the layout formatting of such an arrow? Layout is in front of text, but I played around with that and did not solve it

 

[Cindy M -WordMVP-]

Hi =?Utf-8?B?TWFyeSBMZWU=?=,

OK, moving to Word 2000 (I think it was) Word included a new functionality that
allows text in tables to wrap around graphics. When a graphic is anchored in a
table, however, this also affects the vertical alignment (everything goes to the
top, as you've observed). What you need to do:

1. Turn on the display of object anchors (Tools/Options/View)

2. Click on such an arrow, and look for the anchor symbol.

3. DRAG that symbol to a paragraph *outside the table*

4. Right-click the arrow, go into the formatting menus, the one for Layout, and
Advanced. You want to *lock* the anchor so that it can't slip back inside the
table

1. From which previous version did you upgrade? Word 97

2. Can you please describe what the text is doing differently? Is it "flowing around" the arrow, or?

Two things. In most cases I have the text left jusitified, centered

top-to-bottom, and it makes the text go to the top. I have to put space above to
get it to move down again. The other thing is having the arrow just disappear
when I try to move it. I have also had new arrows behave the same way. Our
internal help desk could not figure it out, either.

3. What is the layout formatting of such an arrow? Layout is in front of text,

but I played around with that and did not solve it.
Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Sep 30 2003)
http://www.word.mvps.org

This reply is posted in the Newsgroup; please post any follow question or reply
in the newsgroup and not by e-mail

 

[Mary Lee]

Thank you, Cindy! Once I got the arrows behaving, as I described to Suzanne in the thread that Joe started about "Text box in Table woes," (2 messages above) the anchor is in the margin outside the table. Would I want to lock them where they are, now that the arrows are where I want them? The way I am doing this is using a 2-column, 1-row table where my text is in one column and my graphic is in the other, so I want the arrow to stay in the table, but to cross the border between the two columns.
Mary Le

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

An arrow that bridges two table cells cannot be "in" the table.

Thank you, Cindy! Once I got the arrows behaving, as I described to

Suzanne in the thread that Joe started about "Text box in Table woes," (2
messages above) the anchor is in the margin outside the table. Would I want
to lock them where they are, now that the arrows are where I want them? The
way I am doing this is using a 2-column, 1-row table where my text is in one
column and my graphic is in the other, so I want the arrow to stay in the
table, but to cross the border between the two columns.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Any object that isn't within a specific table cell is floating above (or
behind) the table; that is, it is in the drawing layer. See
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/DrwGrphcs/DrawLayer.htm

 

[Cindy M -WordMVP-]

Hi Mary Lee,

Once I got the arrows behaving, as I described to Suzanne in the thread that

Joe started about "Text box in Table woes," (2 messages above) the anchor is in
the margin outside the table. Would I want to lock them where they are, now that
the arrows are where I want them? The way I am doing this is using a 2-column,
1-row table where my text is in one column and my graphic is in the other, so I
want the arrow to stay in the table, but to cross the border between the two
columns.Locking the anchors will *not* have the effect of locking the positions of the
arrows. This is a common misconception; there is no way to permanently lock the
position of graphical objects. Locking the anchors will only prevent the anchors
themselves from being moved to a different anchoring paragraph.

What you will want to do to improve your chances that the arrows stay where you
put them is to make sure they're formatted to "Move with text".

What *I* do if I have a text + graph combination that absolutely must stay
positionally static is to create the entirety as a "Word picture". But this is a
lot of work, and is only good for things that won't need to span pages.

Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Sep 30 2003)
http://www.word.mvps.org

This reply is posted in the Newsgroup; please post any follow question or reply
in the newsgroup and not by e-mail

 

[Mary Lee]

Suzanne and Cindy - Thanks again. Got the article - actually, I am doing what the article suggests with the tables. Also, I have incorporated all possible drawing objects into the graphic itself, but I still am left with those arrows that have to go from the text to a very particular spot on the drawing. What I ended up doing is putting a red circle around the spot in the drawing, and then pointing an arrow to it. That way, if the arrow moves around a bit, the reader will still know where to look. Opening the wrong thing could be dangerous and we can't take any chances. Funny, but I was doing fine until I got 2003. I like it a lot, I just started having trouble adjusting arrows and making new ones
Best
Mary Lee