Word 2007 can't group pictures, shapes and textbox together

[doquan0]

English is not my first language, please sympathize if there is any fault.
I created some shapes, textbox, WordArt and insert a picture. I saved this
document as A.docx (Word 2007) and B.doc (Word 97-2003). When I open A.docx,
I cant' groups these objects together. But with B.doc, I can do it easily.
How can solve this problem

[Rae Drysdale]

Go to the Home tab and on the extreme right click on Editing. Here you can
select all, or probably what you are looking for is the select objects so
that you can marquee what you want. You can still click on an object and add
to your selection by holding down the shift key and clicking on additional
objects. Hope this helps.
--
Rae Drysdale

[Bob Buckland ?:-) At Beautiful Downtown]

Hi Doquan0,

If all of the shapes, Wordart and pictures in your Word 2007 document already have a text wrapping choice of other than 'inline with
text', and you're still getting a 'lead bell' ding sound when trying to group the items, my guess would be that it is likely picture
(via Insert=>Picture from File),
that may be the point of frustration.

In 'old' Word versions (or instant 'Classic' as MS calls the last version before this one <g>) the graphics/pictures and shapes from
the MS Drawing Objects engine were managed within Word's capabilities. For Office 2007 there was a new graphic engine created and,
unfortunately for us, it was only partially implemented in Word 2007 (for example Word doesn't have 'new' WordArt, only classic
while Excel and Powerpoint have new WordArt <g>).

Because of that partial implementation, the inserted pictures and SmartArt are managed by the new Office graphics engine, while the
inserted shapes and shape handling is still managed in Word. The basic result is that Word's 'classic' grouping and multiple
object selection tool don't 'see' the inserted pictures to allow you to group them with the shapes. If you select a picture that
you inserted and right click, copy then on the Home tab look at the Paste Special Dropdown the graphic type is
"Microsoft Office Graphics Object", rather than the Word classic
"MS Office Drawing Object".

When you save in 'compatability' mode (.doc) the pictures are reset to 'classic' types, but if you then upvert (save as the new file
formats) the pictures will tend to break away from the grouping.

Basically, if an item has white pearl sizing handles (new graphics object) it usually can't be directly grouped with an item that
has flat square sizing handles (old/classic graphics engine object).

There are several workarounds (and hopefully one of the folks here who still program <g> will find a macro solution to this as
well). Here are some you may want to consider. The workarounds give the 'new items' the appearance to Word of being 'classic'
objects.

1. Work in 'compatability mode' (i.e. save in Word .doc format). Lets you work as before, but turns off some of the newer features
in Word 2007.

2. Work within a Word drawing Canvas:

Use Insert=>Shapes=>New Drawing Canvas (at the bottom of the shapes dialog) and Insert all of your items to group into the canvas.
A canvas automatically groups/contains the pictures and shapes within a single frame and within the canvas you can selectively have
subgroups. Separately, a canvas can be grouped with drawing items outside of the canvas.

3. Revert to 'classic' by extracting items from a drawing canvas.

A variation of item 2 allows you to move items out of a drawing canvas back into Word's "regular" area where they can be handled as
Word 'classic' objects, even in .docx files.

While in the drawing canvas created in 2., above, after applying shadows, styles, etc to the items, use the shift key and click on,
for example an inserted picture and a shape, right click and group them.

4. Use a textbox shape to hold the inserted picture.

Use Insert=>Textbox=>Draw a Textbox (bottom of the gallery), then inside the text box use Insert=>Picture or double click the
textbox and use Textbox Tools=>Format=>Shape Fill=>Picture.
(If you use Insert=>Picture you can apply the Word 2007 picture tool effects to the graphic that is in the text box. You can

I hope that I didn't confuse things too much for you :)

=================
<<"doquan0" <doq...@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message news:2E813F2C-DA13-4ADB...@microsoft.com...

--

Bob Buckland ?:-)
MS Office System Products MVP

*Courtesy is not expensive and can pay big dividends*

[Cindy M.]

Hi =?Utf-8?B?ZG9xdWFuMA==?=,

The problem you're seeing is due to Word 2007 having a mix of the old graphics
technology and the new "Escher" graphics introduced in Office 2007. The two
can't mix; there's no way to group the new (Clipart, Smartart for example) with
the old (AutoShapes, WordArt).

Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Jun 17 2005)
http://www.word.mvps.org

This reply is posted in the Newsgroup; please post any follow question or reply
in the newsgroup and not by e-mail :-)

[Cindy M.]

Hi Bob,

> Because of that partial implementation, the inserted pictures and SmartArt are managed by the new Office graphics engine, while the
> inserted shapes and shape handling is still managed in Word.
>

However, you can still "group" an inserted picture with other "old Word" things by puttin ghtem all in a Drawing Canvas.

[Bob Buckland ?:-) At Beautiful Downtown]

Hi Cindy,

Yes, that was mentioned as workaround #2 in my previous message <g>.

==============
<<"Cindy M." <C.Mei...@hispeed.ch> wrote in message news:VA.00000a08.01545936@speedy...
Hi Bob,

However, you can still "group" an inserted picture with other "old Word" things by puttin ghtem all in a Drawing Canvas.

Cindy Meister <<

--

[Cindy M.]

Hi Bob,

> Yes, that was mentioned as workaround #2 in my previous message <g>.
>

Sorry, didn't get that far with my conscious mind :-)

Cindy Meister

[odr...@gmail.com]

I had the same problem.
The image must be in a text box to be able to group.
you can group text boxes but not images.
the image had a box around it to resize it but it cannot be grouped that way.

[Timothy Takemoto]

Thanks to Bob Buckland for the thorough answer. It is crazy that the useful feature of grouping has been discontinued.

Another way is to use a one cell table with transparent borders. I am using this method.

Some say one can group in PowerPoint and paste.
Another way may be to use a caption (but I am not sure about two captions?)