Expert: Jay Freedman - 3/19/2004

Question
Hi Jay: thanks a lot for your input; this helps with the graphics, but do you have some advice for handling tables? I have some tables that I pasted into a text box, and even when I have the text box formatted as text wrap square, and unlock anchor, and uncheck the "move with text" option, it acts really funny. If I move the text box with the table it often leaves big white spaces behind that can't be removed with "backspace." I've also tried just moving tables using the four-arrow handle with the same problems.

Susan

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Followup To
Question -
Hi: I'm using Word 2002 and am when I try to move text boxes that have graphics or tables in them, they often don't go where I drag them to, jumping one to two pages and leaving a big piece of empty space there. I can't back space to remove the blank space, and when I go to the end of the line before the blank space and hit "delete", the graphic jumps back and text is wrapped around and sometimes through it in weird ways. Also, I'm trying to put one big table on a page all by itself and can't get rid of the one line before or after it. The text boxes are formatted "square text wrap" and I've unchecked the "move with text" Can you help? thanks!
Susan

Answer -
Hi, Susan,

The key to understanding placement of text boxes (and floating tables and graphics that aren't "inline", which Word considers to be the same kind of thing) is to know about their anchors.

When you insert a text box, Word attaches it to the paragraph that contains the cursor at the time. The box is "anchored" to that paragraph. You can even see the anchor: go to Tools > Options > View and check the box for "Object anchors". Now, when you select the text box, a boat-anchor icon will appear in the left margin next to the paragraph.

The text box will always stay on the same page as its anchor. If you edit the document so that paragraph moves to another page, the text box will go to that page, too.

You can grab the anchor icon with the mouse and drag it to another paragraph (unless you go into the text box's Properties dialog, click the Advanced button on the Layout tab, and check the "Lock anchor" option). If the new paragraph is on a different page, the text box will jump to the new page. Sometimes, moving the text box will also move the anchor; this is not good for your sanity, but you can prevent it by locking the anchor.

The "Move object with text" option determines whether the text box will move up and down the page when the anchor paragraph moves because of editing text before it. Unchecking this box is the closest you'll get to locking the text box in place on the page; but moving the anchor paragraph to another page will still take the text box with it.

When you have two or more text boxes on the same page, or text boxes and graphics together, they'll bump each other out of the way unless you check the option to "Allow overlap". This can get pretty chaotic, like playing bumper cars!

So -- position the text box where you want it, lock its anchor, uncheck "move with text", check "allow overlap", and don't let any other floating objects get too close to it.

The table is a slightly different matter. Put a blank paragraph between the table and the following text, and tinker with the font size of that paragraph mark until it fits on the page with the table and pushes the following text to the next page.

Regards,
Jay

Answer
Hi, Susan,

My best advice is to remove the table from the text box, make it not floating (go into Table > Table Properties and set the text wrapping to None), and position it in a regular paragraph. Anything else is just asking for trouble.

If you really must have text wrapped around the table for design purposes, (a) do not use a text box to hold the table and (b) do not drag the four-arrow table handle. Starting with the table not floating, go into Table > Table Properties. Set the text wrapping to Around and then click the Positioning button. Set a horizontal and vertical position -- note that you can either type a number of inches or select one of the items from the dropdown in each of the Position boxes. Click OK buttons until you're back in the document. Try not to drag the table accidentally -- it's unfortunately easy to do, and will throw your measurements out.

Regards,
Jay