Shading paragraph w/Before, After spacing
Alison McGee
I commonly make handouts for my students that have the title in a
gray-shaded text box with white lettering. Now, I'm making a longer
handout/book that I want to use the same formatting, but I'm being annoyed
at having to make some changes on the boxes and want an easier way. (I
changed the margins and now the boxes are all too long, never were perfectly
aligned in the first place.)
I tried doing the highlighter and Format, Borders & Shading options, but
that doesn't work when I have Before and After spacing on. (It would look
goofy to just have the gray "box" hit the top and bottom of my text -- I
need a little gray buffer space.)
I discovered that I can do some Shift-Enters before and after instead, but
my master plan was to put this in a style, so that won't work (or will
it?!). Same with a table cell -- is that an option in a style?
The gray does go completely across the margin -- so Paragraph shading WITH
some Before/After option would work for me.
Please tell me I'm missing something obvious. I've spent the last hour in
Deja to no avail! Thanks!
Alison
Suzanne S. Barnhill
change the "From text" measurement.
--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft Word MVP
Words into Type
Fairhope, AL USA
Alison McGee <amc...@mtco.com> wrote in message
news:cgM85.123$UJ2....@sea-read.news.verio.net...
Bob Dietz
Hi Suzanne,
On my machine Word 97 SR2, Windows 98 this doesn't work as expected.
If I apply border/shading to text (as opposed to a paragraph,) the Options
button is greyed out. If I apply border/shading to (a) paragraph(s), the left
right edges of the border/shading are determined by the left and right indents
modified by the left and right "From text" measurements.
Is that how it works for you?
Regards,
Bob Dietz
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Yes, this was an oversight on my part. The Options button is not available
for shading at all unless you have a border (which can be white, i.e.,
invisible). And for borders it is available only for paragraphs, not for
selected text or table cells.
--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft Word MVP
Words into Type
Fairhope, AL USA
Bob Dietz <rbdiet...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:3963CCA9...@yahoo.com...
Bob Buckland ?:-)
Hi Bob,
The left and right adjustments appear to be the amount it extends beyond
the left and right page margins and then if there is an indent it shifts the 'box' by the
amount of the indent (using a centered =rand(1,1) test sentence to which the
Title style was applied)
Interestingly if you zoom out to see the whole page and keep clicking the
indent button the box content wraps and wraps and reshapes until the left edge
of the border gets to the right margin and the text is now
a one character wide vertical item, then if you keep clicking the Indent button
the whole box walks off of the right edge of the document page.
(Using Border [Options] settings left and right of 19 pts.
Suzanne's tip about making the border white also allows a way to
to also adjust the 'buffer size' of space between the end of the colored part
and the next line of regular text and as Alison asked, yes it can be in a style
as can doing this with a combination of Raised/Lowered Fonts plus changing
the paragraph line spacing and using only shading. :)
============
<<"Bob Dietz" <rbdiet...@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:3963CCA9...@yahoo.com...
Hi Suzanne,
On my machine Word 97 SR2, Windows 98 this doesn't work as expected.
If I apply border/shading to text (as opposed to a paragraph,) the Options
button is greyed out. If I apply border/shading to (a) paragraph(s), the left
right edges of the border/shading are determined by the left and right indents
modified by the left and right "From text" measurements. The latter approach
lets you move things more than the 30 point max of the Table Borders option
although that can be overcome with border line width as well.
Is that how it works for you?
Regards,
Bob Dietz>>
--
Hope that helps,
Bob Buckland ?:-) MS Word/Office MVP
*Courtesy is not expensive and can pay big dividends*
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Bob Dietz
Hi Alison,
See Suzanne Barnhill's reply, but try this also.
1. Open the "Style" dialog. (Format/Style... menu item)
2. Click the "New..." button
3. Base the new style on "Normal", with "Style for the
following paragraph" also set to "Normal".
Be sure that "Add to template" has a check and that
"Automatically update" does not. Give the style a name -
"Title WT_15%_Grey" would do.
4. Still in the "New Style" dialog, use the "Format..." button
to access the Font, Paragraph and Borders dialogs.
Aside from the completely obvious (like setting the font
color to white)... set the left and right Paragraph indents
to something like 1.5 inches with "Centered" alignment.
Use before and after to whatever amounts occur most
frequently in your docs. When you have finished defining
the style, click "OK" then "Close."
Apply the new style to use it. Pressing shift-enter will expand
the box to include more than one line. For the occasional title
that is too wide to fit in the box, simply adjust the left and right
paragraph indents. You can do that either by using the ruler
or from a dialog (Format/Paragraph).
If you find yourself constantly adjusting the size of these title
boxes, it is quite trivial to add a couple of buttons to one of
your toolbars that will increase/decrease the left and right
pargraph indents by a fixed amount each time you click on them.
Hope this helps,
Bob Dietz
Suzanne S. Barnhill
I have no idea what either of you is talking about. If I apply shading to a
paragraph, it covers just the paragraph, irrespective of indents (keeping in
mind that we're talking about an ordinary paragraph here, not one in a text
box; what the user wanted was to get away from having to use a text box).
Adding white borders allows me to extend the shading using the "From text"
measurement (which indents the text accordingly). Admittedly, there is a
limit of 31 points on each side, but I don't imagine I'd want more than that
in most cases for the sort of application the user described.
--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft Word MVP
Words into Type
Fairhope, AL USA
Bob Buckland ?:-) <7521...@compuserve.com> wrote in message
news:OOKvetu5$GA....@cppssbbsa02.microsoft.com...
Bob Buckland ?:-)
Hi Suzanne,
If you turn on viewing text boundaries, create a single sentence title, center
it and put the paragraph border around it using the [Options] button to
set the distance from text the zero would be the text boundary and increasing
the number, for me, puts the border beyond the text boundary on left and
right (i.e. outside the margins). If you then hit the indent key you should see
that the left border will be different with and without the indent.
Being able to 'indent' text completely off of the page looks like a bit of a bug :)
=======
<<"Suzanne S. Barnhill" <sbar...@zebra.net> wrote in message news:u9uZiJw5$GA.65@cppssbbsa04...
I have no idea what either of you is talking about. If I apply shading to a
paragraph, it covers just the paragraph, irrespective of indents (keeping in
mind that we're talking about an ordinary paragraph here, not one in a text
box; what the user wanted was to get away from having to use a text box).
Adding white borders allows me to extend the shading using the "From text"
measurement (which indents the text accordingly). Admittedly, there is a
limit of 31 points on each side, but I don't imagine I'd want more than that
in most cases for the sort of application the user described.
Suzanne S. Barnhill>>
Bob Dietz
Be sure your news reader is using a fixed width font or
the following won't make any sense.
In a new blank document select "Normal" style and type the
following paragraph...
This is a Title
Using the "Paragraph" dialog...
Alignment: Centered
Left: 0
Right 0
Using the "Borders and Shading" dialog, on the "Borders" tab ...
Setting: Box
Apply to: Paragraph
At this point I have something like...
____________________________________________________
| This is a Title |
----------------------------------------------------
Again, using the "Paragraph" dialog...
Alignment: Centered
Left: 1"
Right: 1"
At this point I have something like...
_________________________________________
| This is a Title |
-----------------------------------------
Isn't this how things behave for you also?
Regards,
Bob Dietz
"Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote:
>
> I have no idea what either of you is talking about. If I apply shading to a
> paragraph, it covers just the paragraph, irrespective of indents (keeping in
> mind that we're talking about an ordinary paragraph here, not one in a text
> box; what the user wanted was to get away from having to use a text box).
> Adding white borders allows me to extend the shading using the "From text"
> measurement (which indents the text accordingly). Admittedly, there is a
> limit of 31 points on each side, but I don't imagine I'd want more than that
> in most cases for the sort of application the user described.
>
Alison McGee
Read all the replies, tried a few things. Instead of using a white border,
is there any difference from using the same gray for the border as for the
shading? I fiddled with it and was surprised to get the same result, which
I didn't expect.
Everything looked great with adding a same color/white border to my shaded
box and making the Top and Bottom 4 or 5 pts in the Borders' Options...
dialog. BUT, that was until I went down further in my document. Now, I've
got the top of page 3 formatted nicely (sans text box), but the end of page
2 (in the middle of a page) has a thick gray line on the page break, which I
can't seem to get rid of (and keep my good stuff).
BTW, I'm not centering anything horizontally, just a dinky first line indent
(0.06") on this always-one-line, always-the-same-width gray "box" with
Tahoma bold, 14 point white type in it. I do have After paragraph spacing
set to 6 pts.
Thanks to everyone!
Alison
Suzanne S. Barnhill <sbar...@zebra.net> wrote in message
news:#Dr3jct5$GA.254@cppssbbsa04...
> In the Format | Borders and Shading dialog, click the Options... button
and
> change the "From text" measurement.
>
> --
> Suzanne S. Barnhill
> Microsoft Word MVP
> Words into Type
> Fairhope, AL USA
>
> Alison McGee <amc...@mtco.com> wrote in message
> news:cgM85.123$UJ2....@sea-read.news.verio.net...
Suzanne S. Barnhill
My point exactly: I can't get the shading to extend beyond the paragraph by
indenting it. When I indent the paragraph, the shading is also indented.
--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft Word MVP
Words into Type
Fairhope, AL USA
Bob Dietz <rbdiet...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:39643313...@yahoo.com...
> > --
> > Suzanne S. Barnhill
> > Microsoft Word MVP
> > Words into Type
> > Fairhope, AL USA
> >
Bob Dietz
My current interpretation of that posting:
The outer edges of the right and left hand borders
of the shaded box should align exactly with the
right and left "Text boundaries.'
If that is the requirement, then one must set the left
paragraph indent to the border's line width plus the
value of "Left:" in the "Border and Shading Options"
dialog.
*** If the "Border and Shading Options" "Left:" value is 0 pt
*** instead of the default 4 pt, then the paragraph's left
*** indent is simply the line width of the border.
To see this set "Text boundaries" to show in the options dialog.
Then format a paragraph with a 6 pt wide border and set zoom to
200%.
Alison McGee
This gray "box" is the width of the page between the margins...or a
reasonable facsimile thereof. It doesn't need to be EXACTLY that, just not
as short as the text itself -- again, I want the boxes to look the same
throughout the document.
Alison
Alison McGee <amc...@mtco.com> wrote in message
news:%l195.165$UJ2....@sea-read.news.verio.net...
> > --
> > Suzanne S. Barnhill
> > Microsoft Word MVP
> > Words into Type
> > Fairhope, AL USA
> >