typing so that words are in the shape of a circle

S

sarahwms

I'm a scrapbooker and want to journal in Word in the shape of a circle. I'd
like to know if this is possible? (I don't want my words going in a circle,
I know that can be done in Word Art...I want my words to follow the outline
of the circle and move to a new line when the circle gets larger or
smaller....

THANKS!
Sarah
 
S

Suzanne S. Barnhill

I think you're saying you want your ordinary horizontal text to wrap around
the outside of a circular shape? If so, insert a circular AutoShape (with No
Line and No Fill) and apply Tight wrapping to it.
 
S

sarahwms

Suzanne,
Actually I want to be able to draw a circle, and then type INSIDE that
circle and I want the words to conform to the circle shape.
 
G

gil

Or mabye even simpler? ...
insert/ picture/ Word Art ... Select (highlight) your text/ Word Art toolbar / select desired Word Art Shape/ circle/ drag
handles to size desired.

Cheers,
Gil
 
S

Suzanne S. Barnhill

Unfortunately, Word doesn't offer any good way to do this. If you select an
AutoShape, right-click, and choose Add Text, you get a text box inside the
shape, but it's always rectangular. There are therefore two ways to approach
the problem. Which you choose will depend on the situation (what other text
the document contains, how much text is involved, etc.).

1. Insert a text box (No Line, No Fill) in front of the circle AutoShape.
Make it square, the same size as the circle. Change the inside margins as
required. Center the text horizontally (Ctrl+E) and type, adding line breaks
(Shift+Enter) as required to fit the circle outlines.

2. Use two half-circles to constrain ordinary inline text. You can start
with the Block Arc shape (rotated and stretched as required). Position two
of them, facing opposite directions toward each other, apply Tight wrapping,
and type between them.

The latter method requires a tremendous amount of trial and error and really
doesn't work very well (or at least I can't seem to get it working today,
though I know I've done this in the past.
 
S

sarahwms

Gil,
Thanks, but this only types the words in a circle, it doesn't line up the
text in a circle shape! Maybe I'm not painting a clear pic...

some
thing like
this only lett
ing the W
ord do

the work!
 
S

sarahwms

SORRY! That didn't show up correctly...although it is in this reply (while
typing!)! Who knows what it will show up like on the forum! (Also, I
noticed that it does look sorta like what I want in the preview pane on the
forum!
 
C

Character

sarahwms said:
I'm a scrapbooker and want to journal in Word in the shape of a
circle. I'd like to know if this is possible? (I don't want my
words going in a circle, I know that can be done in Word Art...I
want my words to follow the outline of the circle and move to a new
line when the circle gets larger or smaller....

What you want is a circular text box. Unfortunately, Word doesn't have
such a feature. You can create a circular or oval shape, then "add
text", but the result is a rectangular block of text inside the shape.

You can also do it manually, by typing inside the shape and manually
adjusting line ends, spacing, etc.

Programs like Corel Draw and Adobe Illustrator have an 'envelope'
function, where the text will flow within the confines of the envelope
you create, which can be a circle or any other shape. That's probably
the cleanest way to do it.

Keeping within the confines of Microsoft products, I believe that you
can do it with Visio, using one of its pre-defined shapes. Just about
all visio objects are text boxes.

You can create your object in another program, then copy/paste or
import or place it into your word document.

- Character
 

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