[*muffin*]

I made a whole page of tables for filling in genealogy information on a
person.
MOST of the tables are working fine with the text. but for some reason I
cannot TAB over to some where the text is correct. lemme try to explain:
when I tab to one table to the next in some of them are 'black' boxes,
(which sometimes this works ok, as I can delete the whole box to put in new
information) but, most of these are in the wrong spot INSIDE the table, I
want the text to start over several spaces, to get this I have to keep
clicking the space bar to start it where I want.
in other boxes this works ok , it starts where I want (NO black box,, only
a curser bar), ALSO when I click on each individual table box it MOST DO go
to where I want it,
still other problems when I TAB over say I have the text set at 8 (which
it says when I individually click on it, but when I TAB over to it the text
is at 12! I cannot figure out what I am doing wrong & how to fix all this
so each table is what I want in font size & position of text!
also on some tables when I Tab over I cannot SEE the curser (when I click
individually it shows up!), but it will type in correctly.
arrghhhhhhhhh.
to make all this more complicated I wanted little text boxes in each table
that did not move like the words "name" "address" "birthdate" etc. I could
only figure out I had to put individual text boxes in each table & send it
BEHIND the table so it wouldn't be affected by what I typed IN each box,
this seems to work OK, but there has to be an easier way, I could not find
where you could 'lock' in a text block (or something like that) so it would
stay... did I miss something?
please help. its driving me nuts to keep changing all this each time I type
in!.

[Lene Fredborg]

Some tips that may help you:

The €œblack boxes€� that appear when you tab:
Try to turn on formatting marks (click the ¶ icon in the Standard toolbar)
so that you can see spaces and other non-printing character (spaces are shown
as small dots). From you explanation, my guess is that the €œblack boxes€�
appear where you have typed a lot of spaces.

In general, you should never use a series of spaces to indent text. You
should instead use the €œIndentation€� settings in Format Paragraph Indents
and Spacing tab.

Couldnt you change the table layout so that you add the €œstatic€� text
(name, address, etc.) in a row above or a column to the left of the data? You
should skip the text box solution!

I suggest that you read Shauna Kellys articles (e.g. about styles and
tables) at http://www.shaunakelly.com/word

See also:
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/TblsFldsFms/TableBasics.htm

--
Regards
Lene Fredborg
DocTools - Denmark
www.thedoctools.com
Document automation - add-ins, macros and templates for Microsoft Word


"*muffin*" wrote:

I made a whole page of tables for filling in genealogy information on a
person.
MOST of the tables are working fine with the text. but for some reason I
cannot TAB over to some where the text is correct. lemme try to explain:
when I tab to one table to the next in some of them are 'black' boxes,
(which sometimes this works ok, as I can delete the whole box to put in new
information) but, most of these are in the wrong spot INSIDE the table, I
want the text to start over several spaces, to get this I have to keep
clicking the space bar to start it where I want.
in other boxes this works ok , it starts where I want (NO black box,, only
a curser bar), ALSO when I click on each individual table box it MOST DO go
to where I want it,
still other problems when I TAB over say I have the text set at 8 (which
it says when I individually click on it, but when I TAB over to it the text
is at 12! I cannot figure out what I am doing wrong & how to fix all this
so each table is what I want in font size & position of text!
also on some tables when I Tab over I cannot SEE the curser (when I click
individually it shows up!), but it will type in correctly.
arrghhhhhhhhh.
to make all this more complicated I wanted little text boxes in each table
that did not move like the words "name" "address" "birthdate" etc. I could
only figure out I had to put individual text boxes in each table & send it
BEHIND the table so it wouldn't be affected by what I typed IN each box,
this seems to work OK, but there has to be an easier way, I could not find
where you could 'lock' in a text block (or something like that) so it would
stay... did I miss something?
please help. its driving me nuts to keep changing all this each time I type
in!.

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

In addition to the excellent suggestions Lene offers, it sounds like what
you're really asking for (or about) is a protected form; see
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Customizat...nTheBlanks.htm and especially
the forms tutorials by Dian Chapman that this article links to.

--
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.

"*muffin*" wrote in message
...
I made a whole page of tables for filling in genealogy information on a
person.
MOST of the tables are working fine with the text. but for some reason I
cannot TAB over to some where the text is correct. lemme try to explain:
when I tab to one table to the next in some of them are 'black' boxes,
(which sometimes this works ok, as I can delete the whole box to put in
new
information) but, most of these are in the wrong spot INSIDE the table, I
want the text to start over several spaces, to get this I have to keep
clicking the space bar to start it where I want.
in other boxes this works ok , it starts where I want (NO black box,,
only
a curser bar), ALSO when I click on each individual table box it MOST DO
go
to where I want it,
still other problems when I TAB over say I have the text set at 8 (which
it says when I individually click on it, but when I TAB over to it the
text
is at 12! I cannot figure out what I am doing wrong & how to fix all this
so each table is what I want in font size & position of text!
also on some tables when I Tab over I cannot SEE the curser (when I
click
individually it shows up!), but it will type in correctly.
arrghhhhhhhhh.
to make all this more complicated I wanted little text boxes in each
table
that did not move like the words "name" "address" "birthdate" etc. I
could
only figure out I had to put individual text boxes in each table & send it
BEHIND the table so it wouldn't be affected by what I typed IN each box,
this seems to work OK, but there has to be an easier way, I could not find
where you could 'lock' in a text block (or something like that) so it
would
stay... did I miss something?
please help. its driving me nuts to keep changing all this each time I
type
in!.

[*muffin*]

I am having trouble readin your post there are a lot of extra symbols ?
and ¶ icon
so I am confused as to what exactly to do??

also, I cannot remove the text block name/address etc,, the table is dense
in information
I can send you a copy of the .doc so you can see what I mean.



"Lene Fredborg" wrote in message
...
Some tips that may help you:

The ?oblack boxes?� that appear when you tab:
Try to turn on formatting marks (click the ¶ icon in the Standard
toolbar)
so that you can see spaces and other non-printing character (spaces are
shown
as small dots). From you explanation, my guess is that the ?oblack
boxes?�
appear where you have typed a lot of spaces.

In general, you should never use a series of spaces to indent text. You
should instead use the ?oIndentation?� settings in Format Paragraph
Indents
and Spacing tab.

Couldn?Tt you change the table layout so that you add the ?ostatic?�
text
(name, address, etc.) in a row above or a column to the left of the data?
You
should skip the text box solution!

I suggest that you read Shauna Kelly?Ts articles (e.g. about styles and
tables) at http://www.shaunakelly.com/word

See also:
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/TblsFldsFms/TableBasics.htm

--
Regards
Lene Fredborg
DocTools - Denmark
www.thedoctools.com
Document automation - add-ins, macros and templates for Microsoft Word


"*muffin*" wrote:

I made a whole page of tables for filling in genealogy information on a
person.
MOST of the tables are working fine with the text. but for some reason I
cannot TAB over to some where the text is correct. lemme try to
explain:
when I tab to one table to the next in some of them are 'black' boxes,
(which sometimes this works ok, as I can delete the whole box to put in
new
information) but, most of these are in the wrong spot INSIDE the table,
I
want the text to start over several spaces, to get this I have to keep
clicking the space bar to start it where I want.
in other boxes this works ok , it starts where I want (NO black box,,
only
a curser bar), ALSO when I click on each individual table box it MOST
DO go
to where I want it,
still other problems when I TAB over say I have the text set at 8
(which
it says when I individually click on it, but when I TAB over to it the
text
is at 12! I cannot figure out what I am doing wrong & how to fix all
this
so each table is what I want in font size & position of text!
also on some tables when I Tab over I cannot SEE the curser (when I
click
individually it shows up!), but it will type in correctly.
arrghhhhhhhhh.
to make all this more complicated I wanted little text boxes in each
table
that did not move like the words "name" "address" "birthdate" etc. I
could
only figure out I had to put individual text boxes in each table & send
it
BEHIND the table so it wouldn't be affected by what I typed IN each box,
this seems to work OK, but there has to be an easier way, I could not
find
where you could 'lock' in a text block (or something like that) so it
would
stay... did I miss something?
please help. its driving me nuts to keep changing all this each time I
type
in!.

[*muffin*]

Ok, must have been my newsreader that had al those characters..... strange.
I went to the google site to look up this thread & read what you put.
interesting about the ........(spaces)
I started deleting those.. I see a BUNCH of the ¶ end of paragraph mark.
what exactly are those ( I tired figuring it out through HELP..... but not
much help...hmm) & how do I get rid of them?
I'll play around with this to see if I can get a better document.

question though it seems like theup.down/right/left arrow keys work a heck
of a lot better than hitting TAB to go from table to table, is this supposed
to be so? or should I still work on fixing all the little things?

also, I still get the disappearing curser in some of the table fields when I
go to them (by arrow key or tab) what is this??

thanks a bunch!

"Lene Fredborg" wrote in message
...
Some tips that may help you:

The ?oblack boxes?� that appear when you tab:
Try to turn on formatting marks (click the ¶ icon in the Standard
toolbar)
so that you can see spaces and other non-printing character (spaces are
shown
as small dots). From you explanation, my guess is that the ?oblack
boxes?�
appear where you have typed a lot of spaces.

In general, you should never use a series of spaces to indent text. You
should instead use the ?oIndentation?� settings in Format Paragraph
Indents
and Spacing tab.

[Lene Fredborg]

Hope you have solved some of your table problems. Below, I will try to answer
your recent questions:

The ¶ symbol at the end of each paragraph:
When you have turned on formatting marks (by clicking the ¶ icon in the
Standard toolbar), not only spaces but many other types of non-printing
characters become visible. The ¶ symbol at the end of each paragraph
indicates the end of the paragraph but it also holds all the settings that
apply to the paragraph. The ¶ symbols and other formatting marks become
invisible again if you click the ¶ icon in the Standard toolbar again (it is
a toggle button that turns the marks on and off). Actually, the formatting
marks are really helpful once you get used to work with documents with the
marks turned on (for example, you can _see_ section breaks codes and page
break codes when the formatting marks are shown).

For more details about formatting marks, see this article:
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Formatting/NonPrintChars.htm

Using the Tab key versus the arrow keys.
The Tab key jumps to the next cell in a table and, at the same time,
_selects_ (highlights/makes black) the contents of that cell. Therefore, it
is practical to use the Tab key if you are going to _replace_ the contents in
the next cell - just start typing, and the previous contents will be
replaced. Note that if you are in the last cell in that last row of a table
when you press the Tab key, a new row will be added to the table.

The left/right arrow keys moves the insertion point one character at a time
(unless you also press and hold Ctrl and/or Shift). If the insertion point is
at the end of a cell, pressing the left arrow key will move the insertion
point to the start of the next cell _without selecting_ the text. The up and
down arrows move up or down without selecting text.

This way, you can use either the Tab key or the arrow keys depending on what
you want to do next. They are not supposed to work the same way.

The disappearing cursor:
One thing that could result in the cursor disappearing is _negative_ left
and/or right indentation in a table cell (will cause the text to exceed the
cell borders - the cursor will be hidden if placed in the invisible text).
You could check the left and right indentation below €œIndentation€� in Format
Paragraph Indents and Spacing tab.

--
Regards
Lene Fredborg
DocTools - Denmark
www.thedoctools.com
Document automation - add-ins, macros and templates for Microsoft Word


"*muffin*" wrote:

Ok, must have been my newsreader that had al those characters..... strange.
I went to the google site to look up this thread & read what you put.
interesting about the ........(spaces)
I started deleting those.. I see a BUNCH of the ¶ end of paragraph mark.
what exactly are those ( I tired figuring it out through HELP..... but not
much help...hmm) & how do I get rid of them?
I'll play around with this to see if I can get a better document.

question though it seems like theup.down/right/left arrow keys work a heck
of a lot better than hitting TAB to go from table to table, is this supposed
to be so? or should I still work on fixing all the little things?

also, I still get the disappearing curser in some of the table fields when I
go to them (by arrow key or tab) what is this??

thanks a bunch!

"Lene Fredborg" wrote in message
...
Some tips that may help you:

The â?oblack boxesâ?� that appear when you tab:
Try to turn on formatting marks (click the ¶ icon in the Standard
toolbar)
so that you can see spaces and other non-printing character (spaces are
shown
as small dots). From you explanation, my guess is that the â?oblack
boxesâ?�
appear where you have typed a lot of spaces.

In general, you should never use a series of spaces to indent text. You
should instead use the â?oIndentationâ?� settings in Format Paragraph
Indents
and Spacing tab.