I want to make a template for my middle school students to type in a magazine
article they wrote. I've created a template already using text boxes & image
place holders, but I would like to use tables because I feel that it's
"cleaner." the problem is, I don't know how to make text "flow" from one
cell to another like I can do with text boxes. I don't want to merge cells,
because I want the text to be in small columns (like a magazine or
newspaper). Tables would make it easier for me to design the page because I
have much more control of the borders & shading.

I searched the knowledge base for similar questions and I couldn't find one.
I would think this would be a common thing people would consider doing, or
am I just missing one simple option change. Thanks for any assistance!

Text cannot flow between table cells; if you want to use them, you would
have to manually cut and paste text from one cell to the next.

Actually, Word has limited capabilities for newsletter formatting.
Linked text boxes is the closest you can get to "dividing" the page into
rectangular areas, each of with has newspaper style columns.

The best solution would be to use Publisher, I think. Unlike Word, it
was designed to be page layout software.

--
Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP


"Enstrique" wrote in message
...
I want to make a template for my middle school students to type in a
magazine
article they wrote. I've created a template already using text boxes
& image
place holders, but I would like to use tables because I feel that it's
"cleaner." the problem is, I don't know how to make text "flow" from
one
cell to another like I can do with text boxes. I don't want to merge
cells,
because I want the text to be in small columns (like a magazine or
newspaper). Tables would make it easier for me to design the page
because I
have much more control of the borders & shading.

I searched the knowledge base for similar questions and I couldn't
find one.
I would think this would be a common thing people would consider
doing, or
am I just missing one simple option change. Thanks for any
assistance!

Hi Enstrique,

You could put text boxes inline into the table cells, and link them.
But that's pretty cumbersome because the text boxes won't resize
automatically if you change the table cell/column widths later on.

If you want to try anyway, you could use a macro to set the width of the
text boxes to the width of the cells they are in.
Of course, that'll work best if the table cells *have* definite widths and
heights.

The macro assumes you'll do the margins/padding through the table cell
padding, not through text box margins.
That way, it will be a little easier to see and navigate the table, which
else would be completely hidden by the text boxes.

Dim myShape As Shape
For Each myShape In ActiveDocument.Shapes
If myShape.Type = msoTextBox And _
myShape.WrapFormat.Type = wdWrapInline And _
myShape.Anchor.Information(wdWithInTable) Then
' set textbox margins to zero;
' do the margins with cell padding instead:
With myShape.TextFrame
.MarginLeft = 0
.MarginRight = 0
.MarginTop = 0
.MarginBottom = 0
End With
With myShape.Anchor.Cells(1)
myShape.Width = .Width _
- .LeftPadding _
- .RightPadding
If .Height wdUndefined Then
myShape.Height = .Height
' - .TopPadding _
' - .BottomPadding
' (not sure why the difference width/height?)
End If
End With
End If
Next myShape

Regards,
Klaus



"Stefan Blom" wrote:
Text cannot flow between table cells; if you want to use them, you
would have to manually cut and paste text from one cell to the next.

Actually, Word has limited capabilities for newsletter formatting.
Linked text boxes is the closest you can get to "dividing" the page
into rectangular areas, each of with has newspaper style columns.

The best solution would be to use Publisher, I think. Unlike Word, it
was designed to be page layout software.

--
Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP


"Enstrique" wrote:
I want to make a template for my middle school students to
type in a magazine article they wrote. I've created a template
already using text boxes & image place holders, but I would
like to use tables because I feel that it's "cleaner." the problem
is, I don't know how to make text "flow" from one cell to another
like I can do with text boxes. I don't want to merge cells,
because I want the text to be in small columns (like a magazine or
newspaper). Tables would make it easier for me to design the page
because I have much more control of the borders & shading.

I searched the knowledge base for similar questions and I
couldn't find one.
I would think this would be a common thing people would
consider doing, or am I just missing one simple option change.
Thanks for any assistance!