Cannot nudge graphic and cannot rotate text box

[Miss P.T.]

I am running Word 2004 on a MacBook Pro running OS X 10.4.9. Both the
operating system and Word are fully updated. I am putting together a simple
(yeah, right!) flyer, using an image from the clip gallery which I have
modified to remove its colour (it's a simple sun graphic). I wish to nudge it
so that it's in the centre of the page, unfortunately, the nudge tools are
unavailable (greyed out) and option+relevant arrow key only serves to
deselect the image. Now the image was dowloaded from the MS Clip Gallery
Online, and is in WMF format (which I always understood to be Windows
MetaFile, which may be the problem - what with me using a Mac an' all. Yes,
it sounds ridiculous to me, too, as I type it, but I'm clutching at straws
here...)

The other problem I'm experiencing involves text boxes. On each ray of the
sun I am wishing to place a text box containing the number '2', with the base
of the two aligned with the 'circle' that represents the centre of the sun
(does that make sense - the 'rays' are essentially triangles, and the centre
is circular). I need to place each '2' a little way off the bottom of each
ray, with the top parallel to where the triangle begins to narrow. However, I
am unable to rotate the text box (the 'rotate' tool is also unavailable -
greyed out) and you are only able to rotate the text within the box to one of
two positions - 90 or 270 degrees - which is stupid, as I'm sure I'm not the
only person on the planet who would require a rotation of 180.

Word does not make for a good DTP tool - I am a semi-trained graphics
designer and, like all GDs, I am a perfectionist; if it ain't perfect, then I
don't submit it. I cannot afford to purchase any additional software, so I'm
stuck with Word at the moment. From what I can glean from the scant
information in the Help files, what I am wishing to do should be achievable,
it's just that I must be doing something wrong. This is a flyer for my
slimming group and it needs to be emailed to the group leader for approval
before Monday (23/04).

Any assistance would be very gratefully appreciated.

Thanks

Sarah

 

[Elliott Roper]

Word is hopeless for that.
Grab a free trial of OmniGraffle from omnigroup.com It will be good
enough for what you want without paying anything.

You might sniff about their stencil collection for a quick start.

 

[John McGhie [MVP Word, Word Mac]]

Hi Sarah:

You *can* nudge with the cursor keys, but only if you have the object
correctly selected. It's not very intuitive: the first click should select
the object and allow nudging: the second click will select the inner object
and nudging will be disabled.

You get used to it...

Reveal the Drawing toolbar, and look on the Draw menu. There are Alignment
functions there that may solve your centreing problem with less fuss

No, you are not the only person who would like to free-rotate text in Word.
But sorry: It can't do that Try PowerPoint: I am not sure that
PowerPoint Mac permits free rotation of text either, but it's worth a try.
The two products use the same drawing engine, but more of the controls are
exposed in PowerPoint.

Hope this helps a little...

--

Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

http://jgmcghie.fastmail.com.au/

John McGhie, Consultant Technical Writer
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. GMT + 10 Hrs
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]

 

[PhilD]

modified to remove its colour (it's a simple sun graphic). I wish to nudge it
so that it's in the centre of the page, unfortunately, the nudge tools are
unavailable (greyed out) and option+relevant arrow key only serves to
deselect the image. Now the image was dowloaded from the MS Clip Gallery

The problem may be that, before you can nudge the graphic to somewhere
else, you need to change the layout so that it is no longer "in line
with text".

That breaks it free from thinking it's an alphabet character and can
go anywhere on the page.

PhilD

 

[Annie Seedballs]

Hi Sarah:

You *can* nudge with the cursor keys, but only if you have the object
correctly selected. It's not very intuitive: the first click should select
the object and allow nudging: the second click will select the inner object
and nudging will be disabled.

You get used to it...

Reveal the Drawing toolbar, and look on the Draw menu. There are Alignment
functions there that may solve your centreing problem with less fuss

No, you are not the only person who would like to free-rotate text in Word.
But sorry: It can't do that Try PowerPoint: I am not sure that
PowerPoint Mac permits free rotation of text either, but it's worth a try.
The two products use the same drawing engine, but more of the controls are
exposed in PowerPoint.

Hope this helps a little...

Not really, no.


Sorry, John, but I don't understand - I'm only clicking the graphic once and
I've no idea what you mean by "inner object" - I'm only using one graphic. As
a side note, I cannot rotate the graphic either. Could you please elaborate.
I'm becoming VERY frustrated. Nudge doesn't work at all either. I've even
pasted everything into a new document - no dice.


Thanks

Sarah

 

[CyberTaz]

Hi Annie -

PhilD's hit the nail on the head re your first point... In order to nudge
the graphic you need to first forma t its Layout Property to something other
than In Line with Text. Control-click it, choose Format Picture, go to the
Layout tab & pick something other than In Line... Depending on how & where
you want text to behave relative to the image. Once you hav Text Wrapping
applied you'll be able to freely drag & udge the image.

(OTOH, you could leave it In Line & just click the Center alignment button
on the Formatting toolbar if you want to have it treated as a character in a
paragraph & need only have it centered horizontally between the margins.)

Re your second issue - John is totally correct that Word doesn''t enable
free rotation of text other than WordArt. So you _could do each of the
numbers as a separate WordArt Object & rotate each to your heart's content.

HOWEVER - without going into elaborate detail on how to spend a lot of time
- perhaps *without* getting the result you want - I would suggest you do the
whole job in PowerPoint, Group the image & all the rotated numbers, copy the
Grouped object & in Word use Edit>Paste Special>Picture. If necessary (but
it probably won't be) apply the Text Wrapping as above.

As to your 3rd point, YOU are absolutely right about Word not being a decent
layout program, but it *isn't* intended to be... It's a Word Processing
Program. Unfortunately MS has tried to cater to the masses over the years by
providing some "convenience items" thereby giving the wrong impression about
what the principal focus of the program *is* - but then again, Photoshop &
Illustrator can't do Footnotes or TOCs *at all*

HTH |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac