how to get "information mapped" style of text

  • Thread starter Thread starter Barbara White
  • Start date Start date
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Barbara White

Hi, everyone,

We're using Word 2003 on Windows XP and Word 2007 on Windows XP.

We want to create a template that uses this sort of blocked format:

Word Text text text.
text text text
text text text.

Word Text text text.
text text text
text text text.

In the past, we accomplished this with tables, but as the document grew
and we added more tables, we found that the file often became corrupt.
So we've always tried to avoid using lots of tables in Word to control
formatting.

It's been awhile since I've looked into this and I wonder if things have
changed. Is this no longer as risky (using lots of tables) or is there a
new feature in the latest version of word that lets you achieve this
layout without using tables?
 
From your example, it's not clear what you're trying to accomplish. Your
text looks to me like ordinary text, perhaps with some indents or line
breaks. Could you explain more clearly?

FWIW, I created a document in Word 97 that had literally hundreds of small
tables. While it was a bit cumbersome and slow (on an old, slow machine), it
did not corrupt.

--
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.
 
Suzanne said:
From your example, it's not clear what you're trying to accomplish. Your
text looks to me like ordinary text, perhaps with some indents or line
breaks. Could you explain more clearly?

FWIW, I created a document in Word 97 that had literally hundreds of small
tables. While it was a bit cumbersome and slow (on an old, slow machine), it
did not corrupt.
Click to expand...

Oh dang, the indented formatting went away.

For a very simple idea of what we want, have a look at this URL:
http://www.sei.cmu.edu/publications/documents/01.reports/01sr010/01sr010refs.html.


We're looking to achieve something like that in Word that doesn't use
tables and that would be heavily text based--the text would appear in
the right-most column; multi-line subheadings would appear in the
left-most column.

If we used tables to govern that layout, there's potential for some of
the tables to be fairly long--most of these documents would likely have
200-300 pages and would contain nested tables and graphics. Perhaps the
problems that we've experienced are due not so much to having numerous
tables, but to having numerous lengthy tables that contain lots of
nested tables & graphics...?

Hmmmm, I'm encouraged by your hundreds-of-tables document example!
 
Replied to duplicate email.

--
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.
 
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