Tables, forms, and other abominations

[Bruce]

Word 2000, Windows XP. This may or may not be a tables
question, but since FUBAR is not a choice, it is the
closest I can find. I have been attempting to design a
form with multiple check boxes. I put the check boxes
into table cells. It looked fine until I printed it, when
I discovered that letters that extend below the line (e.g.
p, q, g) were chopped off. It is not a print driver
problem, as it happened identically on three different
printers. In any case, I have already updated all of the
print drivers in a vain attempt to get this monstrosity to
work as advertised.
The problem turned out to be that the check boxes extended
below the bottom of the table cells, so I made the cells
taller and the check boxes shorter. I still could not
position the check boxes anywhere except the bottom edge
of the cell (check box was in line with text, but changing
the text orientation within the cell had no effect on
position of the check box within the cell, no matter how
tall the cell). So I formatted all of the check boxes in
front of text, and was finally able to control where they
went.
The goal was to shrink the form vertically so as to allow
more space between sections of the form. I thought I was
almost done, but there are a few lines of text below the
table. The style of that text includes 6 pt. space before
paragraph. However, the last paragraph (only two lines)
jumps to the next page, even though there is almost an
inch of space above the bottom margin. There are no blank
paragraphs, no page or section breaks, no extra space
after the last paragraph, and the footer margin is at .25
(and there is one line of 8 pt. type in the footer). In
short, I can think of no reason why the paragraph jumnps
when there is plenty of room for it.
By the way, Word crashed in the middle of trying to create
the form. No suprise there, as it often crashes with
tables other than the most simple ones. I just need to
remember to save my work every few seconds.

 

[Ron]

If I understand you correctly, I think that the solution lies in changing
the vertical alignment of your table cells. To do this select the table,
then take table properties and click on the CELL tab. Select the vertical
alignment that you need.

HTW
Ron

Word 2000, Windows XP. This may or may not be a tables
question, but since FUBAR is not a choice, it is the
closest I can find. I have been attempting to design a
form with multiple check boxes. I put the check boxes
into table cells. It looked fine until I printed it, when
I discovered that letters that extend below the line (e.g.
p, q, g) were chopped off. It is not a print driver
problem, as it happened identically on three different
printers. In any case, I have already updated all of the
print drivers in a vain attempt to get this monstrosity to
work as advertised.
The problem turned out to be that the check boxes extended
below the bottom of the table cells, so I made the cells

Snip-------------

 

[Bruce]

Thank you for your reply. I was ranting due to a day's
work going to waste. The problem is that I have three
paragraphs of text below a table, and the the last
paragraph keeps jumping to the next page. The text is not
in a table, so vertical alignment does not apply. The
first two paragraphs are one line each, the second is two
lines. There is about an inch of space above the margin,
which should be plenty of room. There are NO extra
paragraph marks, formatting is all through styles, no
space after the last paragraph, line spacing is single,
widow/orphan control only. In short, there is no
identifiable reason why the last paragraph cannot fit onto
the page. I have copied the form to a new document,
deleted and re-created styles, removed all manual
formatting, and still I cannot keep the last line on the
page. I believe that the problem arose when the program
crashed (a frequent occurrence with tables and forms). I
believe my only option is to start from scratch, unless
there is an option of which I am not aware. Sometimes the
only thing to do is to accept that the program has failed
again, and to cut my losses.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Are you 100% sure the last paragraph is not formatted as "Page break
before"? For more, see http://home.zebra.net/~sbarnhill/BottomLine.htm

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://www.mvps.org/word
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

 

[Bruce]

Absolutely 100% guaranteed. In any case, the paragraph
does not jump to the next page until I get to the second
line (which occurs through automatic wrapping, no manual
line breaks or anything of the sort). There is still
plenty of room for the text, but the paragraph moves. It
moves no matter what style I apply, and when I have
removed all manual formatting (which I don't use very
often, preferring to work with styles).
I found an apparent workaround by putting the text into a
text box, which looked fine on the screen, but which
printed with the controls (check boxes) locked into their
original locations. In other words, I had moved the
tables containing the controls, and the controls seemed to
move with the table, but they printed in their old
locations. I tried to format the control > Advanced >
picture position, but it showed that the controls were
some negative number below the page (but a positive number
below the margin).
I believe that the crashes corrupted the document, and I
finally set out to create a new one, at the cost of much
lost productivity. Crashes are a frequent occurrence with
my Word 2000 / windows XP combination when working with
controls in tables.
By the way, my single biggest gripe about tables is that
when I adjust the width of a cell, the whole row changes
by the same amount. I would like to establish a table
width, and have everything happen within that boundary.
Setting the table width does not accomplish that. Failing
that, I would like to be able to see narrow column widths
when I use the Alt key together with dragging borders. As
it is they cannot be read because of the arrows, etc. It
is quite inconvenient to have to drill down to the column
width and write it down so that I can calculate the cell
width necessary to get the row to come out to the desired
width. I use Excel when I can, as it is a much better
designed and executed program when it comes to managing
grids, but unfortunately it is not always possible.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

I don't know what's going on with your stubborn paragraph, but wrt to tables
resizing, I agree that it's frustrating that the "preferred width" is just a
preference and not an absolute limit, but I can see how having it absolute
could cause problems. It *is* possible to size the columns without affecting
the overall table width, however, depending on how you drag the column
borders. See http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/TblsFldsFms/TableBasics.htm

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://www.mvps.org/word
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

 

[Bruce]

The document was corrupted beyond any hope of redemption.
When I recreated the document the problem went away. The
document, as I mentioned, had crashed repeatedly (a common
problem in my experience with tables and controls).
Thank you for pointing me to the article about changing
column widths without surrendering all control to the
whims of Word. That information is not in Word Help (at
least not in the place about changing column widths). It
is beyond me why Word Help is lacking so much useful
information. I rarely even use Help anymore, preferring
newsgroups since the people in them actually use the
programs in real-life situations.

-----Original Message-----
I don't know what's going on with your stubborn paragraph, but wrt to tables
resizing, I agree that it's frustrating that

the "preferred width" is just a