Advanced microsoft word desktop publishing

Another publishing standard available in Microsoft Word is the text box feature. It allows you to drop text into the middle of objects while controlling the placement, size and font. In the same way, AutoShapes make drawing geometric figures, arrows or banners a breeze. These features, combined with the huge template gallery available both within the software and online through the Microsoft Office website, give you tremendous versatility in creating products.

Templates for invitations, flyers, banners and just about any type of business publication are readily available and can be completed quickly with no special training.

You might also try searching the internet for template collections posted by expert Microsoft Word users. An extremely powerful tool is the drawing canvas, where you can gather objects, size them and move them about easily before final placement on your document. For example, a drab publication can become more enjoyable to read, simply by adding WordArt creations or AutoShapes. You can also find help on forums visited by Word experts. Position the cursor over the second empty text box, and click once to link the two text boxes.

The best part is that you can edit within either box, and the text will automatically flow back and forth as you cut or pad the story. Using the Edit Wrap Points feature, you can control how text wraps around and through an image. First, add the image to your Word document, select the image, and choose Picture Tools on the Ribbon toolbar.

Now, with the image still selected, click Format once more and choose Edit Wrap Points. A red line with black markers, called wrap points, will appear around the image. Adjust this line by dragging the wrap points: You can drag the wrap points inward to wrap text over the image, or drag them outward so that the text moves away from the image. Drag on the line itself to create additional wrap points, as desired. In the days of illuminated manuscripts, artists created elaborate illustrations to decorate the first letter of a page or chapter.

With Word, you can make drop caps, which are fancy first letters for a paragraph or a page. The Drop Cap feature lets you create fancy first letters for chapters and documents. You might need to experiment with these options to get the best result for any given font. Word treats the drop-cap letter as part of the word that follows it, so a spelling check will still function correctly. You can format a document, or part of it, into columns to make it look similar to a newspaper or magazine.

For newsletters, training materials, and similar documents, you can format your text in multiple columns, which makes the text easier to read. Word allows you to turn anything from a small portion of text to an entire document into columns. To achieve this result, select the text that you want to appear in columns, and then click the Page Layout tab on the Ribbon. Next, click Columns , and then indicate the number of columns to use two is typically sufficient.

Word will arrange the selected text accordingly, leaving the remainder of the text to flow across the entire page width. In that case, you can create a text box for the caption. Using a text box and some formatting features, you can create custom captions for your images. First, insert the image into the document. Click in the text box, and type your caption text. Size the text box to match the width of the image.

Finally, click No Outline. Group the text box and the image so that they will move together. To do so, click the image to select it, hold down the Shift key, and click the text box.

With both items selected, right-click and choose Group from the pop-up menu, and then select Group once again. Pull quotes add visual variety to a text-heavy page; use them to place a sentence or two of interesting text copied from the surrounding page into a box separate from the page text. First, select the words you wish to use, or type some new text.

Copy that text, choose Insert on the Ribbon, and click Text Box. Now, click the text box, move it into position on the page, and resize it to suit the text it displays.