The whole answer is a small novel (actually, quite a large novel...)
The cause is that Word reflows the text whenever you print, using the
measurements it obtains from the printer driver.
In word processing, everything is positioned relative to everything else,
and the text is reflowed automatically as soon as anything changes (fonts,
styles, printer measurements, etc...)
So all of the paragraphs in a document are "stacked", one after the other,
and each one is relative to the one before it.
Your graphic is either inline with text, or it is floating.
I always create a blank paragraph, then insert each graphic as inline with
text. I can then use the properties of the paragraph to position the
graphics. As the text reflows, this technique ensures that the graphic is
always positioned correctly relative to the surrounding paragraphs.
To get text to wrap "around" the graphic, you can't use my method. You must
position the graphic "Float over text". As soon as you do that, the graphic
is then "anchored" to the top left corner of one of the paragraphs, and Word
will then store and compute that graphic's position relative to the position
of the anchor.
If you know that a document is going to be edited, displayed, or printed on
a different computer, you must assume that the text will reflow when that
happens. You can't say by how much: on a small document it may not be
noticeable, on a large one, things may move back and forth by a couple of
pages or more.
So when positioning the graphic you need to position it in such a way that
when it moves, that won't matter. Instead of positioning the graphic at an
absolute measure with respect to the top left starting point of the
paragraph, you can choose to position it relative to the "margin" or the
"page".
Use "Margin" if you are working on a document over 200 pages and you expect
the text to move a long way. As the paragraph containing the graphic's
anchor moves, Word maintains the position of the graphic with respect to the
page or column margins.
For shorter documents, position the graphic relative to the "Page". As the
text flows, Word will keep the graphic in the same position on the page and
move the text around it.
Positioning relative to Page breaks down in long documents because the
anchor paragraph may be flipped to a different page. Positioning the
graphic in the same position on that new page may not look good.
Positioning relative to Margin breaks down in short documents, because the
graphic will move up and down with the paragraph and may end up outside the
page area.
It takes a bit of thinking and practice to get this right. Spend as much
time in the Help as it takes to carefully read everything there is about
graphics. It is a subject that will repay your time invested. I work
mainly in long documents, so I rarely need anything other than Inline with
Text.
Hope this helps
Hi,
I work as an assistant to a university professor in a Mac exclusive
environment and the Word problem I'm having is that I was asked to make
corrections to a figure heavy series of lecture notes today, which I
did but while one of the figures looks fine and perfectly aligned on
the screen, the printed page is another story because when printed the
figure's shifted on the page and bleeds into other surrounding
graphics. If someone has any suggestions at all about how to fix this
I'd be really appreciative. Not only is my boss is a really picky
person who finds this unacceptable but I'm a really curious person who
would like to know how to solve this problem.
Thank you!
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John McGhie <
[email protected]>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 4 1209 1410
