You worked a little with text boxes in Project 2, but not with linked text boxes. The special feature of linked text boxes is that when one box gets full of text, the text keeps on flowing automatically into the next text box in the chain. It's like what we expect for pages in a word processor where extra text flows onto a new page. It seems the natural thing! But for text boxes, there is nothing "natural" about it. You must deliberately create the text boxes and deliberately link them together.
In the illustration above, you see a chain of 4 linked text boxes. A text box is just an AutoShape that has text put into it. This chain starts with the purple rectangle. Can you tell the order of the boxes in the chain?
Click the image to see the answer.
Any AutoShape can become a text box, but they are not ready to be linked right away.
Empty to start with: You can't link to a text box if it already has text in it or
if it is already linked to another text box. There can be only one path through the text boxes.
Word 2007 and Word 2010/2013 have some annoying differences when it comes to text boxes.
What is selected: Word 2007 makes it easy to see which is selected, the whole box or the inside for editing. Word 2010, 2013, and 2016 are similar but not exactly the same in showing when a text box is selected for editing.
Link Commands: The context menu and Mini-Toolbar that appear when you right click on the border of a text box (a tricky thing to do!) is different between the versions. Word 2007 puts several commands about linked text boxes on the context menu but Word 2010, 2013, and 2016 do not. Those commands are in the very long list of 'Commands not on the ribbon'. If you find yourself using linked text boxes a lot, you will want to put some of those commands on the Quick Access toolbar or on a custom ribbon tab.
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Step-by-Step: Create & Link Text Boxes |
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What you will learn: | to create a new folder from the Save As dialog to create a text box to select a text box to size a text box using the ribbon to copy a text box to link text boxes to break a link why text can vanish in a text box to add a custom tab group to the ribbon how to tell if a text box is linked |
Start with:
, a blank document open in Word
You are going to create 4 identical text boxes. You will link them and insert some text to show how the flow of text goes from one box to another.
Sometimes you start to save your work and realize that you need to create a new folder for it. Not a problem! The Save As dialog will let you create a new folder.
Open the new folder.
There are several ways to create a text box
from the Insert tab.
The easiest way is with the Shape button by choosing the Text Box shape ,
which is a rectangle with an A and lines, representing paragraphs of
text. Using this shape gives you a white background with black text.
If you want to use a standard pull-quote style, the Built-In styles
make that easy.
Click on the Text Box shape in the Basic Shapes section.
(It may also be in the Recently
Used section at the top.)
The gallery closes and the
mouse pointer changes to the Precision shape .
The anchor symbol
stands in the margin beside the paragraph to which the text box is attached. You only see the anchor when the text box is selected. You can move the box around on the page without moving the anchor. If you move the anchor, the text box does not usually move. The text box moves when you move the paragraph to which it is anchored and stays in the same position relative to the text box.
Warning: Accidentally moving or deleting a text box
If
you select text and include the anchor by mistake, you will be
selecting the text box, even if it is out of sight on the page. You can move or delete the
text box without knowing that you've done so.
A text box has two different kinds of selection. Your actions apply to what is selected, of course.
If something did not work as you expected, check to see what was selected.
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Solid border = Format whole box, all text inside at once, no cursor showing |
Dashed border = Enter text or edit; cursor shows |
Highlight text to edit just part |
Word 2010 shows the dashes or the solid line only on the left
and top borders. Harder to see!
Word 2013 and 2016 show the dark solid line only at the left and top but show faint dashes all the way around. Really hard to see!
Click.
You have selected the whole text box. The border is now a solid line
with handles.
Dragging moves the text box. That's
why the pointer has the Move shape. Click carefully!
Click inside the text box.
The border now has dashes and the cursor is blinking on the text line. Simple ... when
you know what is going on.
You can drag the handles, of course, to change the size of a text box or shape. But sometimes you want exact sizes. You can use the Size boxes on the ribbon.
Experiment: Format Text Box
Add some text to the
box. Try out various tools on the ribbon. Which apply to the box as a
whole? Which affect just the text inside the box? Does it make a
difference which kind of selection you have - dashed line or solid
line?
When you are ready to continue, undo all of your changes, especially including removing the text that you added.
Text box pasted inside the original
If the text box is selected for editing, your paste will go into the selected text box itself. This is a common mistake.
Solution: Just
undo, click elsewhere, and paste again.
Text box pasted to middle of page
You first
pasted inside the text box and then your next attempt to paste a copy to the
page shows up in the middle of the page.
Solution: Drag the copy to the correct position. If you need more copies, select
and copy again before pasting.
Repeat the paste two more times and arrange the text boxes in two rows of two boxes each.
Of course, since these boxes are identical, no one can tell which one you positioned first! It doesn't matter at this time which is which, but it will once they are linked.
Important - The numbering of the text boxes in the illustration is just in the illustration. We cannot
type these numbers into the text boxes and then link them! Only an empty
text box can receive a link.
You cannot link to a text box that already has text in it or that is already in a chain of linked text boxes. You cannot link backwards, only forwards in the chain. Be sure you removed any text that you put in while experimenting.
Click on Text Box 2 to link Text Boxes 1 and 2.
Text
that is entered into the first box will flow into the second, when there
is no more room in the first.
Get out of linking mode: ESC key
Suppose you start to create a link but
change your mind or find that you don't have a text box available yet. How do you get your pointer back? Press the ESC key.
Repeat to link Text Box 3 to Text Box 4, which is directly under Text Box 2.
Did you see any changes?
The only change is that the paragraph marks have vanished from boxes 2, 3,
and 4. That's because they are linked to box 1 but there is not any text to
flow into those boxes yet.
Word has not yet made it easy to see whether or not a text box is linked, and if it is, to what. There are some ways to see if a text box is linked, depending on the version of Word. Nothing will tell you which text box is linked to which. <sigh> Desktop publishing programs like Microsoft Publisher show you clearly whether or not a text box is linked. But even in Publisher it can be hard to know which text boxes are linked to which.
Ribbon: Select each text box in turn
and observe changes on the ribbon -
Text Box Tools: Format tab or
Drawing Tools: Format tab in the Text tab group
Quick Access Toolbar or Custom Tab Group:
Add the commands Previous Text Box and Next Text Box
to the Quick
Access toolbar.
These commands are in the list 'Commands not
on the ribbon'.
Click on each text box in turn and observe which commands become active.
When you are ready to continue, you can remove the commands from the Quick Access toolbar and/or the custom tab group, if you wish.
Breaking links:
Type the number 1 and press the ENTER key to
start a new paragraph. Continue typing numbers in order up in separate
paragraphs, up to 15 . Watch how the text flows through the linked text boxes.
Surprise! The last several numbers don't show anywhere!
There is no warning in Word that there is not enough room for all of the text in the final text box. These lines still exist but are hidden below the visible lines in Text Box 4.
Word 2013, 2016: Odd Cursor Behavior
When you have a text box with text hidden at the bottom, if you use the down arrow key to move the cursor to the first hidden line, the cursor seems to hang up at the box border. But, if you press the down arrow key to move the cursor down another line, the cursor vanishes! Once you click out of the text boxes, the cursor no longer shows in the text box, of course.
Publishing programs like MS Publisher put a symbol at the bottom of a text box
when there is overflow text hiding there.
Hidden
text: Always check carefully that ALL the text is showing and is not hiding out of view below the bottom of the last text box.
There is no automatic way to do this! You must know what you put into the text
box(es).
The numbered lines disappear from Text Box 4 and overflow out the bottom of Text Box 3.
In the next lesson you will play around with formatting these boring rectangle text boxes.
Ways to see if a text box is linked:
The button is on the ribbon tab
Create Text Box , Break Forward Link, Previous Text Box, Next Text Box. Which ones are showing depends on where the text box is in a chain of linked text boxes.
Commands Next Link and Previous Link: Next Link or Next Text Box changes the selection to the next text box in the chain. Previous Link or Previous Text Box changes the selection to the previous text box in the chain. These commands can be added to the Quick Access toolbar from the list of commands not found on the ribbon.
In
Word 2010, 2013, and 2016, the commands can also be added to a custom tab group. When the
selected text box is linked, one or both of these buttons will be
active (not gray).