You assume I don't understand about how Word works because you're totally
blinded by this "Word is a word processor" idea. Try reading my post again.
Yes Word is a word processor, yes it's not made for page layout, yes it's a
hammer and a screw, but like I said sometimes there isn't a better
*available* choice. And though imperfectly, you can accomplish page layout
with Word (those suspicious features of out-of-flow object placement,
textboxes). You can be idealistic all you want but some of us work in the
real world. Word isn't dogmatic, it appeases needs it wasn't really designed
for. Just lighten up. It's very simple. If I could make it so Word
wouldn't let me drag an out-of-flow picture without "unlocking" it, it would
make life much easier for page layout use. You can't dispute that. You can
dispute this "improper " use of Word, but I'm pretty sure that real people
with real needs are welcome in this newsgroup, and most people appreciate
help without having dogma shoved down their throats. That's the only reason
I responded, it bothers me to see someone ask a legitimate question only to
be shot down that they shouldn't want to do what they want to do.
I'll give you an example if you're having trouble imagining one. Today an
HR user told me they want to have the ability to create paper certificates
for people on various occasions. We don't have any simple certificate
software or real page layout software on our computers. But we do have
Office, and everyone knows how to use Word, however clumsily. I had an old
certificate I'd done in Word (gasp!) some years ago for another user. It
consists of a background picture for the fancy border/etc with text boxes
over top for the different parts (the dedication, the signatures). I hoped
to be able to lock the background picture before I gave it to her, to head
off the inevitable mistakenly dragging the background picture problem.
Especially if she ended up finding the text boxes too complex and wanted to
resort to using the normal text flow with a bunch of horrid line breaks and
spaces/tabbing for text placement, which is very likely. Except she'd have
trouble placing the cursor because every time she clicked somewhere she would
be selecting the background picture. Not everyone is as adept in Word as we
are, and I don't care how improperly and imperfectly she uses it, I'm just
happy if she can accomplish what she wants to do without requiring help.
Maybe in the future we could justify some better software for the purpose,
but for now Word is our best alternative, between its availability, its
ability to accomplish the task, and our users' ability to use it.
So again to my assertion that this is just a simple user interface wish.
I’m not asking Word to do anything it doesn't already do, I'd just like to be
able to tell it to make one of those things it already lets us do (dragging
an object) take a little more effort to do.
I realize this isn’t quite the same as what the original poster was asking.
It doesn’t sound like they necessarily want to lock a picture, but just to
have it not be affected at all by the text flow. This actually is possible
in Word. Format Picture, select one of the non-inline layouts, click
Advanced, Picture Position tab, uncheck “Move object with textâ€, or set
Absolute Position relative to Page. Shock! Word knows what a page is after
all!
But I'd like to emphasize that I have