Hi Skipper,
The Drawing Canvas is an updated version of MS Draw
that had been an add-in to Word since Word v6/94.
The use of the Drawing Canvas with shapes/objects/graphics
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/assistance/HP052409461033.aspx
is, as was MS Draw, still optional with Word (except for
the use of the 'active' connectors feature
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/assistance/HP051923591033.aspx).
You can turn off the Drawing Canvas default in
Tools=>Options=>General and use it through
Insert=>Picture=>New Drawing when needed.
Within the drawing canvas or MS Draw all of the
objects are in one sense 'grouped' by being held
within the fences (boundaries) of the drawing area.
You can still select and group objects sets of objects
within the canvas by using ctrl+Click, shift+click or
'lassoing' with the 'select objects' tool (white arrow)
on the Word drawing toolbar and change the stacking order
(what's on top) for each shape or picture within the canvas.
The canvas itself is a single graphic object to Word so you
can select the canvas by clicking on its border and change
the layout for the canvas, and all it contains,
from its default of 'in-line with text' positioning to the
usual collection of tight, in front of text, behind text,
etc for wrapping. You can also copy or cut and
then paste objects that are in a canvas back into your
Word document (outside of the canvas) if you prefer to
work on the objects that way or didn't want to use a
canvas for that particular item, but hadn't yet changed
the default setting in Tools=>Options.
As all of the objects on the canvas are 'in the box' and
the box (canvas) is itself a graphic object you can't
use Layout wrapping (by that name) on individual elements
in the canvas, but you can position objects to appear over
or under a canvas and then group them with the canvas itself
by drawing them outside of the canvas or by copying them
from the canvas to the Word document, but Word sometimes
ignores that grouping when you then move the canvas (the
outside objects don't follow in place).
==========
I'm trying to group using drawing canvas. It was so easy in Word 2000, I hit
Shift and each object, then Draw, Group. Now, some of the clip art comes in
on top of each other, and when I right-click to format, object, (tight or
behind text), it does not let me do that and separate them, so that I can
arrange and group. Is there a quick explanation of how the drawing canvas
works? Thank you.>>
--
Let us know if this helped you,
Bob Buckland ?
MS Office System Products MVP
*Courtesy is not expensive and can pay big dividends*
Office 2003 Editions explained
http://www.microsoft.com/uk/office/editions.mspx