Hands on: How to manipulate Word's text boxes

Previously, we looked at some of the things you can do with Word’s newspaper-style columns and text boxes. However, there’s another trick you can perform by linking text boxes. This allows you to have more than one text flow. So, for example, you could start a story on page one and continue it on a later page, independently of the main text.

To link text boxes, select the first one, right-click and click on ‘Create Text Box Link’. You’ll see the cursor change to a jug. When you move over a second text box, the jug will tip ­ click on it and the second box will be linked. Any ‘overflow’ of text from the first box, whether caused by editing or resizing, will appear in the latter, and you can repeat this process to link further boxes.

If you’re using this to continue a story on a different page, you will notice that there’s a snag. You don’t have any indication of where the story goes to or comes from ­ for example, ‘Continued on page 2’ or ‘Continued from page 1’.

You could, of course, insert these manually at the end or beginning of the boxes, but then they would be part of the text flow, so wouldn’t stay put.

Word does have a caption feature for pictures and objects, but as this can be something of a struggle (we’ll return to it another time), here’s an easier way ­ create more text boxes.

Create another text box below the first, then type in ‘Continued on page 2’. Format the text to distinguish it from that in the box above ­ either smaller or italic type, a different colour or whatever you see fit. Fiddle about with the new box size, set the outline and fill to none, and manoeuvre it into position.

When you’re happy with the appearance, select both the main box and the ‘Continued…’ box. This can be rather tricky ­ I’ve found the easiest way to do this is to click on the Select button on the Drawing toolbar, then drag out a rectangle round both boxes.

Having selected them, go to the Draw menu on the Drawing toolbar, then Group. Repeat the process above the second main text box with ‘Continued from…’ You’ll then find that although the main boxes remain linked, the ‘Continued…’ ones are not, but they remain attached to the main boxes, so you can move them around the page as a single entity.

One limitation of text boxes is that you can only have one column of text in them. If you want a two-column boxout as seen on some pages of PCW, then why not use two identical linked text boxes side by side?

To make the process as painless as possible, and the result as elegant, draw the first box and from the Colours and Lines tab of the Format dialogue box, select ‘no line’. Next, hold down the Ctrl key and drag the box over to the right ­ you’ll get a second box identical in size and formatting to the first. Don’t bust a gut trying to get them exactly aligned at the top, as there’s an easy way to do this ­ select both boxes as described above, then from the Drawing toolbar Draw menu, choose Align or Distribute, Align Top.

Now group them as before, so you can move the double box around the page and resize it to balance the columns so that they both contain the same number of lines.

If you want to surround both columns with a border line, then don’t use the line command from the Drawing toolbar, as this produces an unsightly line between the two columns. Instead use the Rectangle drawing tool to surround both boxes, then set that rectangle to have no fill.

Jiggle the size until it looks right, then repeat the Group command to include the rectangle. Once again, you’ll be able to move the grouped items as a single item, and then fine-tune the size to get perfectly balanced columns.

For those using Word 2007, I’m not going to go through it all again, but here’s a quick survival guide. You create text boxes from the Text Box Gallery on the Insert ribbon. The gallery contains a variety of ready-made boxes that may or may not suit or your needs, so you might prefer to use the ‘Draw text box’ command at the bottom of the gallery, which performs the same as in previous versions. As with Word 2003, you can right-click to link and format them.

Alternatively, you can format a text box from the Text Box Tools, Formatting ribbon that appears when you create or select a box. The Select tool is hidden away at the right-hand end of the Home ribbon ­ Select, Select Objects. However, holding down Ctrl and then selecting multiple objects by clicking on them with the Text Box Tools Format ribbon active is much easier than the equivalent in 2003 or earlier.

To align text boxes with each other, select them both, then look carefully in the Arrange section of the Text Box Tools, Format ribbon ­ it’s the tiny unlabelled icon at the top right. Group is just below it.

On the side
Another cool trick with text boxes is rotating text, which also works in tables. We discussed fairly recently how to use this to create ‘tent’ place cards, but you can achieve some dramatic layout effects.

A big text box in the margin of a page with a title in it adds impact, but make sure you get it right. The bottom of the boxed letters should point at the main text, so if it’s in the left margin, run the text bottom to top, and in the right margin, top to bottom.

You can get at the text rotation tool in the Format menu or the Text box toolbar (Word 2003 and earlier) or in the Text panel of the Text box, Format ribbon in 2007.

Word curiosity corner
You probably know that typing, on a new line, =rand(x,y) followed by Enter, produces x paragraphs each consisting of y sentences of ‘The quick brown fox…’. In Word 2007, the fox doesn’t appear ­ you get sample text beginning with ‘On the Insert tab, the galleries include items…’.

You can, however, get the fox jumping again with =rand.old(x,y). Alternatively, should you want something more erudite, =lorem(x,y) produces some Latin instead.

In the tradition of such things, this ‘Latin’ is largely nonsense, as you’ll see if you feed it into an online translator. In all versions of Word, Autocorrect must be enabled for this to work ­ make sure the ‘Replace text as you type’ is checked in Autocorrect options. In 2007, you’ll find this under Office Button, Word Options, Proofing.

There is, of course, nothing to stop you creating your own dummy text in any version of Word, should you tire of the fox and the dog. Type or paste the text, then select it. Go to Insert, Autotext, New and give it a name ­ or accept the suggested name.

Click OK, and the text will be stored. To retrieve it, either go to Insert, Autotext, Autotext… then select it from the list, or more simply, type the name you gave and press F3. You can’t specify the number of sentences or paragraphs this way, but you can hit Ctrl & Y to repeat the insertion.

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