Keep tables from moving when text or pictures are entered above it

[Guest]

I am creating a form in Word and I have a table at the top of the page and a
table on the bottom of the page with a blank space in the middle. The tables
need to be protected but the middle section needs to be unprotected so that
text and pictures can be inserted. After many trials and errors, I figured
out that I could put a continuous page break at the beginning and end of that
section and just protect the other two sections, however, when I enter text
or pictures in the middle section, it moves the table underneath it down onto
a second page. Is there a way for me to be able to enter text and pictures
in that section while constraining it to only that area and keeping the other
two sections stationary? Any suggestions would be helpful.

 

[Jezebel]

Make the tables part of the header and footer respectively. Or put them in
text boxes with absolute positioning.

 

[Guest]

I thought of that too, but the problem is that I need there to be a page
border around the page with a small note at the bottom of the page outside
the page border. I set the page border to not surround the footer, but then
how would I have the page border inclusive of my tables but exclusive of my
note on the bottom?

I hadn't thought about the text box, though. I'll try that. Thanks for the
suggestion

 

[Guest]

Neither of the suggestions worked as you can't place form fields inside text
boxes or headers and footers and I need to be able to have my users fill out
the forms in Word. Any other ideas?

 

[Jezebel]

Redesign the document.

 

[Guest]

In what way?

 

[Jay Freedman]

In what way?

It may help somewhat to fake the "page border" by making a box with
tools from the Drawing toolbar and anchoring that graphic in the
header or footer, instead of using a real page border. The small note
outside the border can be placed in a text box, also anchored in the
footer and with its borders turned off.

The tables can both be created in the body of section 1 at the top of
the page. With the cursor in the second table, go to Table > Table
Properties, click Around, click the Position button, and set the
vertical position to Bottom relative to Margin. It will sit
permanently just above the footer area, but it will still be "in"
section 1 because that's where it's anchored. When you protect section
1, the form fields in both tables will be active.

 

[Jezebel]

In any way that actually works. Currently you're spending a lot of time
trying to do something that doesn't really fit within Word's capabilities.
With enough effort you can probably fake it somehow; but simpler is to
design the problem out. Eg, eliminate the need to put tables at the top and
bottom of a page that the user types in the middle of.