Can one automatically shrink text to fit within a fixed-size table cell, text box or frame?

[Karen]

Hello all!

I hope everyone is doing well on this lovely Friday.

I have a client who wishes me to create a form whereby there are
fixed-size boxes that his users can fill in with text. Instead of the
containers expanding to fit the content, he wants the content itself to
"shrink to fit" automatically. For example, if his client runs out of
space, he/she can continue typing and the font will reduce accordingly.

I've tried experimenting with form fields, tables, text boxes and
frames, and while I can get the outside border to remain static, I
can't for the life of me figure out how to have the text bcome smaller
if it runs over the space provided.

Is this possible in Word 2003?

Thanks so much for your help!

Karen

 

[JoAnn Paules [MVP]]

I know that Publisher can do that but I don't think Word can. I could very
well be wrong tho.

 

[TF]

Use TARDIS technology!

I am unaware that you can achieve this in Word. Other than a fixed number of
characters or a fixed box size or both, I don't know of any solution in
Word.



: Hello all!
:
: I hope everyone is doing well on this lovely Friday.
:
: I have a client who wishes me to create a form whereby there are
: fixed-size boxes that his users can fill in with text. Instead of the
: containers expanding to fit the content, he wants the content itself to
: "shrink to fit" automatically. For example, if his client runs out of
: space, he/she can continue typing and the font will reduce accordingly.
:
: I've tried experimenting with form fields, tables, text boxes and
: frames, and while I can get the outside border to remain static, I
: can't for the life of me figure out how to have the text bcome smaller
: if it runs over the space provided.
:
: Is this possible in Word 2003?
:
: Thanks so much for your help!
:
: Karen
:

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

There is an option in the Table Properties (Cell Options) to "Fit text." You
might experiment with that.

 

[CyberTaz]

FWIW, I agree with the others. Even if such a feat could be accomplished
thru the use of VBA I would have serious doubts about the efficacy &
aesthetics of such a finished product - either *all* text would have to be
resized to comply with the font size required by the 'fullest' box or else
there would potentially be such a mish-mash of various sizes that the doc
could be quite difficult to read. We aren't even talking about the technical
complexity of a template, itself.

You might want to try to charmingly convince the client that this is one of
those 'outrageously brilliant concepts' which current technology simply
isn't yet prepared to handle

 

[Karen]

You folks are all fantastic, thank you!

Each of you brought up some very good points, and especially the fact
that the document would be fairly ratty-looking if it did contain all
sorts of different font sizes. (I never thought of that.)

Okay, I'm going to turn on the charm now...wish me luck! LOL

Thanks again and have a great weekend everybody.

Karen