# Solved: How do I draw a square around text?!?!



## marie500 (May 6, 2002)

I just want to draw a simple square around a block of text. So very sorry to ask! Word XP tells me to select an Auto Shape, then indicate where I want it to go, but it doesn't work that way. I get jumped to a whole new section of the doc, away from the text I wanted to draw a square around, a large blank drawing-canvas "thing" appears, tells me to "Draw Your Picture Here." I don't understand! I've also tried regular "Draw" toolbar but the same thing happens.

Edit: I draw the shape, then drag it all over the doc to locate the place I wanted to put it. Finally I find the place and set the square down, but it COVERS the block of text totally. This can't possibly be right.


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## Glaswegian (Dec 5, 2004)

Hi

Draw your shape over the text, then right click the shape and click on Format Autoshape. On the Colours and Lines tab, set the Fill Colour to "No Fill". I think the default colour is white. The text should now be visible through the shape.

Regards


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## Wolfeymole (Jun 18, 2005)

Hi Marie
Have a look at the shot below.
Write the word then hit the Square icon, pull the + around the word then right click and choose No Fill exactly as Glaswegian described.


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## md2lgyk (Jul 3, 2003)

Can't you just use a text box???


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## coachdan32 (Nov 13, 2003)

You should be able to use a text box and then right-click on it and set a border width to get the box.


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## marie500 (May 6, 2002)

I think the text box works..but only kind-of. After making it and getting to the No Fill command the first time, I lost the right-click command to to back and change or work with it any further. Wanted to fill the whole box with say, green, but that highlights the words in green, like using the highlight tool (I'm not doing that.) Then tried to use the main Fill tool, and it fills half the box underneath the words in color and nothing else.
All the commands on the Text Box toolbar are grayed out.

The auto-format does not work at all. It still covers the words when I say No Fill. After I've done it once, I can't get back to that right-click command, it's gone. 

Now I have a worse problem! - after doing the text box, which I'm leaving as is for now because I can't fix it, I can't position the cursor below the box to continue writing. I try to place the cursor to the extreme bottom of the box and hit enter, it flies back up to the top of the box. It won't let me position the cursor anywhere on the page. I can't move!


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## cristobal03 (Aug 5, 2005)

Is this document confidential? I mean, is there any way you could post it? I'm having trouble visualizing your problem. It almost sounds like you've tried one too many things and now there are some superfluous objects in your document altering the flow.

Also, I'm not quite sure what you mean by "right-click command"...when you right-click in Windows, the menu that pops up is called the *context menu*. Are you saying that you are no longer able to open a context menu by right-clicking, or that when the context menu opens all the utilities are disabled (grayed out)?

chris.


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## marie500 (May 6, 2002)

Not exactly confidential but I wouldn't want to post it. I definitely get the feeling you're right. I've done too many things trying to draw this *simple* box...have made bad changes that I don't even know how to start fixing.

I've opened and closed the document several times also, if that matters. That was the only way to get back the text I kept covering and losing.

Text boxes I create now don't move, can't drag them.
When Glaswegian said this - "*Draw your shape over the text" * - I don't even know what that means, all I can do is highlight the text, I cna't draw any lasso-box around it at all.

I did mean context menu, that's what I used for the fill. Gone.

Now I can't even see the beginning of that line, it's off the screen. The whole document looks weird now, the margins are not right but I know even less about THEM! I reset the margins but that didn't rein it in.

Should I just copy & paste it to a blank doc - Will that reset things back to normal? I will just forget the box! I've done a lot of damage not to mention frustration.

I practiced on a test document but didn't have any better luck.


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## cristobal03 (Aug 5, 2005)

Well, with what you're describing, I'm pretty confident you have a bunch of manual formatting and objects that are hidden or otherwise disrupting the layout. Try this:


Open the problem document and select *Edit-->Select All* from the menu bar (or press *Ctrl+A*). This should highlight everything in your document.

Select *Edit-->Copy* from the menu bar (or press *Ctrl+C*). Close the file without saving.

Click *Start-->Programs-->Accessories-->Notepad*. This opens the application *Notepad*, which is a simple text editor.

In Notepad, select *Edit-->Paste* from the menu bar (or press *Ctrl+V*). This will paste all the text from your original document into Notepad without including any objects or formatting (I _think_...it's always tricky to make blanket statements like that, but for the most part it's true).

SAVE THIS FILE SO YOU DON'T LOSE THE TEXT CONTENT OF YOUR DOCUMENT!!!

Now, reverse the process: select all the text in Notepad, copy it, then paste it into a new blank Word document. You'll have to redo all your formatting and stylizing.
I know it's not beautiful, but it'll save the text content of your file. There's not much more that can be done without actually seeing the trouble file.

HTH

chris.

[edit]
If that doesn't work for you let us know; the next step is to clean up Word itself (in case you accidentally corrupted your normal.dot template by trying to do all these manual adjustments).
[/edit]


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## cristobal03 (Aug 5, 2005)

[bump]
Just for clarification, by default (in Word 2000, anyway) when you insert a picture or drawing object into a Word document, the object's *Layout* property is set to either *In line with text* or *Top and bottom*. To get the functionality you would have liked to achieve, you would have had to *float* the object by setting its Layout property to either *Behind text* or *In front of text*. Even then, in order to keep the box in the right spot when changes were made to the document would have been tricky.

A better solution, as mentioned above, would have been to use either a table or a textbox and then add a border to that object.

The best solution would have been to create a style for that particular type of paragraph and adjust the border settings of the style. For more information, check Word's help files for *Formatting: Formatting with Styles*.

chris.


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## ChuckE (Aug 30, 2004)

If you want a simple way of boxing text, bounded at the paragraph level, you can ...
select anywhere in a paragraph
select command *Format>Borders and Shading*
select *Borders, Setting: Box* (after first choosing any desired styles)
click *[OK]*

done!

If you change the paragraph left and right margins the left and right edges of the box will adjust.
Adding any more text will adjust the box margins, also.


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## marie500 (May 6, 2002)

Wow, I will never do that again - ever. 
Thank you especially for not saying I'm an idiot. Things look back to normal pretty much and I got the (@$!#$^ stupid!) box. Everyone's input helped restore the bad things I did and put the box right. 
This program can be horrifying for casual users like me. 
Thank you all.


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## cristobal03 (Aug 5, 2005)

Glad you got it sorted. If you'd like, you can mark this thread "Solved" by using the *Thread Tools* at the top of the page.

chris.


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