Is there anything better than a Text Box when trying to write colored text
onto a .jpg image in a Word document?

I'm apartment-hunting, and using a Word document to compile my notes.
The document describes many different apartment communities;
each apartment community describes many different floor plans.

At this point in my search, the document contains hundreds of floor plans.

It takes several seconds to analyze a given floor plan. (Where's the front
door? Where's the master bedroom? The guest room? And so on.)

Every time I review the document, I don't want to re-analyze each floor plan.
So, I have put a big red arrow near the front door on every floor plan.

The bedrooms, however, are a problem.  I don't want to introduce more symbols.
Instead, I want to write the word "Master" over the room that I think is the
master bedroom, and the word "Guest" over the guest bedroom.

Since each floor plan is a .jpg image, the only way I can do this is
to use a Text Box.  This works, to a degree.  But there are two annoying
problems:-
(1) The part of the Text Box that I consider to be the background 
    obscures anything underneath it. (I don't think there's any way to make
    the background transparent.)
(2) It seems that the text needs a large 'border' area around it. When I try
    to shrink the box in order to avoid wasting a lot of white space around
    the text, the text attempts to wrap, and disappears downward, inside
    the box.

I'm looking for something better than a Text Box, or a way to make the back-
ground of the Text Box transparent, or a way to reduce the border space around
the text.

Any ideas?

Hi Rambler,


I?ve provided you with two ways to achieve your goal, using 1)Paint,
and 2) Word. You can practice with both programs to see which is
easiest for your purposes.

Let?s start with Paint first. 

Click your ?Start? bar, then ?All Programs? then go to ?All Programs?.

Move to ?Accessories? (should be the first listing under ?All Programs?). 

In the list under ?Accessories? you will find ?Paint?

Go to ?File? and ?Open? to import your floor plan graphic. 

At the end of your Paint toolbar, you will notice 2 identical tool
icons, with a cylinder and a circle). Both are for placing text on a
graphic. The first icon places a solid background under the text, the
kind you said you wanted to avoid.

The second icon (actually the last) is a text icon with a transparent
background. To make the text visible on your floor plan, you can
change the color and the size of the text, in Paint, by selecting font
size in the Font Tool bar that appears once you select the text tool.

To change the color, before you select the text tool, click on the desired color.

Now, let?s address the text box problem. Almost all graphics programs
use a text box for entering text. To avoid the text wrapping, draw
your text box larger than your anticipated need. In most programs you
can enlarge the text box by dragging the edge. Move your cursor around
the box line till you see a double headed arrow, and pull the box to
the right, or down, as needed. You may need to practice enlarging the
text box a few times to get the 'hang of it'.

By using the ?clear text box? tool, the last icon in Paint, you can
make a very large text box, larger than you think you will need, as
there will be no solid background when  you are done.

When you are finished, save the .jpg , open Word, and insert the
graphic, with the text already in place!

Don?t forget the ?Undo? button, found under the ?Edit? tab on your
toolbar in Paint. In Word, the ?Undo? button is indicated by a curved
bent arrow button on the toolbar, and also under ?Edit?, Undo. This
can delete a multitude of errors while experimenting.


You can also use the following method, to work from within Word. Have
your graphic already placed in the Word document. Next, go to
?Insert?, select ?Picture? and select ?Word Art?. (You may need to
click on the two downward pointing arrows at the bottom of the
?Insert? menu to see all of your options).

Word Art presents you with a pop up for typing your text. To save
time, you can select pre-configured colors and shapes of text. The
Word Art text leaves a transparent background, that will not obscure
your graphic. This is a quick and dirty way of labeling your floor
plans, as you have little formatting to do.

While you have some Word Art text selected, notice the ?handles? all
around the text. These handles allow you the ability to stretch the
box longer or higher, as well as minimize the text. Move your cursor
to the middle of the text and you?ll see a four-headed arrow to
appear. This tool allows you to grab the text and move it around. When
the handles are present, a menu appears that offers you the ability to
rotate this text, along with other formatting options.

Here is a Paint tutorial. Click the tools in the Paint window to learn
more about each tool.
http://www.fayette.k12.il.us/99/paint/paint.htm

A more ?wordy? Paint tutorial:
http://www.bittybitznpieces.com/LORAINESMSPAINTTIPS.htm

Here is a Word Art tutorial that shows each menu and screen:
http://www.geocities.com/~prof_al/WORD/wordart2000.html

Additionally, if you have a graphics program that allows you to save
with a transparent background (Like Corel Paint Shop Pro), you could
make a graphic of each word you use, and save them as a .jpg. Once
they are saved, you could select the word ?bedroom? and insert it on
top of your floor plan.

I?m sure that you can achieve your goal using one or both of these
methods. Please request an Answer Clarification, before rating, is any
part of my answer is unclear.

Sincerely, Crabcakes



Search Terms
============
MS Word word art  + tutorial
MS Paint tutorial
Experience with programs

I'm delighted with your answer.  I didn't realize that I could copy a
.jpg file from my Word document into Paint, color it, and then copy it
back into my Word document. This is a much better solution than I was
expecting. Thank you!

You can make a textbox in Word transparent.  Move your cursor over the
edge of the textbox till you get the four arrows pointing up down left
and right.  Then right click and select 'format textbox'.  Under the
'colors and lines' tab, you can select fill color as 'none' to make
the background transparent, and the line color as 'none' to make the
border around the textbox transparent also.

Thank you, supershrub-ga.  Your suggestion actually answers my question bang-on!

Thank you for the 5 stars and the tip! Both are appreciated. I'm glad
supershrub added the comment, since I overlooked that solution!

Sincerely, Crabcakes

You can also reduce the border required by your textbox in a similar
way - from 'Format Text Box', select the 'Text Box' tab and reduce the
internal margin settings (to 0 if you like).