Allow white spaces for hidden text in Word 2003

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Guest

Hi,
I can hide text however, I would like to be able to hide text and allow
white spaces for the hidden text that I type. When I press CRT-SHIFT-H the
text becomes hidden but the cursor does not move - I would like the cursor to
continue.

Is there a way to allow the cursor to continue moving to indicate hidden text?

Please any suggestions/help would be great.

Peter
 
If I understand your description correctly, you want the text to act exactly
as normal text with the only difference that the text is invisible. In that
case, you could format the text with white font color instead of formatting
it as hidden text.

--
Regards
Lene Fredborg
DocTools - Denmark
www.thedoctools.com
Document automation - add-ins, macros and templates for Microsoft Word
 
Thank you Lene,

But, I want the hidden text to not appear in Print View, but be able to view
in Page View.

If I am teaching a class, and I have a printed exercise, I want the students
to have fill in the answer, and then for me to show the corrects answers on a
projector screen in Page View with the correct answers.

Kind regards,

Peter
 
Hope I understand you correctly now. You can make hidden text visible in
Print Layout and hidden in Print Preview (and printed version) if you do this:

To make hidden text _visible_ in Print Layout: Select Tools > Options > View
tab and make sure that the settings "Hidden text" and/or "All" are _turned
on_ below "Formatting marks".

To make hidden text _invisible_ in Print Preview (and printed version):
Select Tools > Options > Print tab and make sure that "Hidden text" is
_turned off_.

To make room in the printed version for the students to write their answers,
you could insert the questions and answers in a table with fixed row heights
- this will leave the rows intact in the printed version even if text is
hidden.

See this article for other ideas:
http://gregmaxey.mvps.org/Toggle_Data_Display.htm

--
Regards
Lene Fredborg
DocTools - Denmark
www.thedoctools.com
Document automation - add-ins, macros and templates for Microsoft Word
 
Hi Lene,

I appreciate your time in answering the question, and you nearly answered my
question. I already know how to create tables for answers with, however, I
want to be able to write a paragraph or a page with some hidden text (and
white spaces so that students can fill in an answer. Perhaps an example would
help here:

The cow jumped over the moon, and the fork ran away with the spoon.

If I want students to identify the correct verb tense for jump and run in
the above sentence, I might want to write the question sentence like this;

The cow (jump) over the moon, and the fork (run) away with
the spoon.

in the white spaces, I would like to be able to type in hidden text
"jumped", and "ran" so that I could print the sentences with white spaces,
and then show my
students on Page view with the correct answers of jumped and ran.

Is is possible without having to use tables?

Kind regards,

Peter
 
From your example I can see that the table solution will not work here (could
be used if the answers were separate paragraphs).

I think I would use the _white font_ method instead of hidden text and to
this:

Create a _character_ style to be used for the answer text (in the following,
the style is named "Answer text"). Base the style on the "Default Paragraph
Font" and add the attributes you want (for example, it may be helpful to
format the font as bold and red when showing the answers). Format all the
answer text in the document with the "Answer text" style.

Before printing the document, modify the "Answer text" style as white and
maybe underlined. When showing the answers, modify the "Answer text" style to
the "display answer" look.

In order to make the switch from visible to invisible fast and easy, you
could use a macro. The macro below will toggle the style definition between
"red text and no underline" and "white text plus black underline". If you are
the only user, you can store the macro in your Normal.dot. If you assign the
macro to a toolbar button, it will be fast and easy to toggle between the
style definitions.

The macro:

Sub ToggleAnswerText()

With ActiveDocument.Styles("Answer text").Font
If .Color = wdColorWhite Then
'Change to red, remove underline
.Color = wdColorRed
.Underline = wdUnderlineNone
Else
'Change to white plus underline
.Color = wdColorWhite
.Underline = wdUnderlineSingle
.UnderlineColor = wdColorBlack
End If
End With
End Sub

If you are making a lot of these exercises, you could create a template with
the macro and the "Answer text" style and base all your exercises on that
template.

For help on installing macros, see:
http://www.gmayor.com/installing_macro.htm

--
Regards
Lene Fredborg
DocTools - Denmark
www.thedoctools.com
Document automation - add-ins, macros and templates for Microsoft Word
 
One more little thing, in case it's not obvious from Lene's description: In
order to get white text with a black underline, you will have to change the
text color, then change the underline color from Automatic to Black (in the
Format | Font dialog).

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.
 
Thanks for adding the comment, Suzanne. I made the macro so that it sets the
underline color but I did not mention how to do this in my description of the
"manual" procedure.

--
Regards
Lene Fredborg
DocTools - Denmark
www.thedoctools.com
Document automation - add-ins, macros and templates for Microsoft Word
 
Well, my first thought was, "Wait--if the text is white, the underline will
be white, too." Then I remembered that recent versions do allow you to set a
different color for the underline. I've never actually had any occasion to
do that, so I tend to forget about it.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.
 
It sounds like what you actually need is PowerPoint - it will do exactly
what you want. You can use text boxes for the missing words and then you can
set them to appear when you click the mouse button.

Please post all follow-up questions to the newsgroup. Requests for
assistance by email can not be acknowledged.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP

Co-author of Word 2007 Inside Out:
http://www.microsoft.com/MSPress/books/9801.aspx#AboutTheBook

Word FAQ: http://mvps.org/word
TechTrax eZine: http://mousetrax.com/techtrax/
MVP FAQ site: http://mvps.org/

"Peter - hidden text question"
 
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