Two superior options leap to mind. As I read your description, I at first
thought that perhaps marginal frames would help (see
http://sbarnhill.mvps.org/WordFAQs/MarginalText.htm).
On balance, however, I believe what you need is a three-column borderless
table. You can make the columns the desired width to accommodate the
proportional amount of text in them, and text in one column will flow from
one page to the next as desired. Although Word is never happy with very long
tables, it is much more tolerant of them than of multiple text boxes (not to
mention that the maximum number of text boxes that can be linked is 32).
Word shouldn't have a problem with a 20-page table at all, however, provided
that you start a new row from time to time (what Word really doesn't like is
long single-row tables; it's best to try to keep row height to less than one
page). Whenever you need to "synch" the text, you can start a new row. If
there are any headings or other breaks in the text, you can also split the
table for them, and that will make Word even happier.
In a previous life, I was a Latin teacher, with an M.A. in Classics (Emory
1972), so I'm eager to help with this project if I can.
--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site:
http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.
"
wrote in message ...
Thanks much for the insights.
--I didn't know how to disable the drawing canvas thingy, and you solved
that easily.
--Also I didn't know about the 2 pages per sheet feature. I looked at it
but I'm not sure yet if it adds anything to my project. And since I need
the left text box to be smaller than the right, I kind of doubt it will
work
for me, since it splits page equally.
What I'm trying to do is set up a template that can be used for scholarly
analysis of classic texts.
The format I want to establish is actually three-fold (even though I
talked
in my initial post of two side-by-side boxes.)
1. left side: portion of text (e.g., Aristotle's works) flowing from left
text box to left text box, and so on to end. This box is not full height
page, and only goes to about "4" to the right, in the measure scale along
top
of page)
1a. (? in same text box or not? -- inclusion of the famous Bekker line
numbers (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bekker_numbers for description
of
these line numbers), adjacent to lines of original text.
2. right side: text box (wider and taller than left text box) for
commentary
on classic text. This commentary will often be referring to specific line
numbers from left box. This text also flows, and won't necessarily be
exactly across from exact text it is referencing, since if there is a lot
of
commentary it might run down the page faster.
********
Aside from the Bekker numbers, which have to be entered manually in the
text
since they are not conventionally sequential that would work in Word,
there
are new texts into which I plan to add an entirely new line number system,
and here I will probably use the Word numbering system, starting with
"10000"
for example, assuming they will flow from one text box to the next on the
left.
Any suggestions on how to set up this kind of document would be welcome.
John Gillis
"Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote:
You definitely want to get rid of the drawing canvas (disable it on the
General tab of Tools | Options). But if you have a drawing canvas, you
also
have a version of Word that allows you to create two pages per sheet (on
the
Margins tab of Page Setup, choose "2 pages per sheet" under "Multiple
pages"). You'd still need the text boxes in order to have the parallel
text
structure, but at least it would be easier to create header/footer text,
etc.
If you'll tell us more about what you're trying to accomplish, we might
be
able to help more.
--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the
newsgroup so
all may benefit.
"
wrote in message
...
One further note -- the two text boxes per page are inside a "drawing
object". Perhaps this is my problem....?
" wrote:
Hi,
I created a doc with 20 pages landscape mode and placed two text
boxes
per
page side by side, linked such that the left hand box links all the
way
down
thru page 20 (and all the right hand boxes are also linked.) Then I
cut
and
pasted a large doc from another file into that left text box, and
the
entire
text flowed thru to the linked boxes on subsequent pages, just as it
should.
Then I started annotating the text in the left hand boxes. And I
started
adding annotations in the right hand boxes.
Along the way I realized I wanted to extract all the text from the
left
and
put it in a plain Doc file (and I want to do the same with all the
text
in
the right hand boxes. But when I select all (control-A) all I get
is
one
page worth of text (either left or right depending where the focus
is).
Is
there any way to get control of the entire text in the left or the
right
document?