3D borders

[Randy Scarborough]

My son would like to get a 3D border around some text (Word 2003 on Win XP
Home).

We try the Format->Borders and Shading menu to get a dialog box and push the
3D button, but the border stays flat (no change from the standard Box
border). When we reopen the Format->Borders and Shading dialog on the text
around which we have placed the "3D" border, the Borders-And-Shading dialog
indicates that the border is "Box", not "3D". So somehow the 3D is refusing
to take.

How do we get a 3D border (and what does it look like, anyway)? (We have
gone through the help system, online and offline, and we are doing what it
says we think.)

Thanks.

Randy Scarborough

 

[Matthew]

It apparently is tied into the "Style." I choose the fourth from the bottom
in the Style box, and choose 3-D for the Setting. In that case, the 3-D
Setting is different from the Box Setting; and it remembers your selection.

Matthew

 

[Randy Scarborough]

I don't get what you mean. I found a "Format->Styles And Formatting" item
on the menu, and this causes a "Styles and Formatting" pane to appear on the
window. In that pane, the fourth from the bottom is "Heading 1". I press
this, and my text changes to a heading, but the 3-D border still does not
create a 3-D border, just the normal box border. In any case I do not find
a 3-D setting in the style menu, so I am not looking where you mean.

Can you point me there? Thanks. Randy Scarborough

 

[Jay Freedman]

Hi Randy

The things Matthew referred to are all in the Format > Borders and Shading
dialog. The Style box is the list of line styles in the middle of that
dialog -- thin ones, thick ones, wavy ones, etc.

The 3D setting has an effect only when you choose one of the line styles
that are not symmetric, that is, ones that have a thin line *and* a thick
line, or shading that goes from light to dark.

The way this works is that the Box setting makes all the edges face the same
way -- for example, all the thin lines on the inside and all the thick lines
on the outside -- but the 3D setting makes the right and bottom edges
reversed from the left and top edges. This gives the illusion of light
coming from the upper left and casting shadows toward the lower right, or
vice versa.

If the style is symmetric (only one line, or two of the same thickness, or
thin-thick-thin) then the reversed edges look the same as the unreversed
ones, so it looks like nothing is different from the Box setting.

 

[Randy Scarborough]

Found it. Got it. Thank you Matthew and Jay.

Randy Scarborough