Text boxes in Word for Mac 2011

[korkale]

I am using Word for Mac 2011, on a 2014 Macbook Air (mavericks 10.9.3).

I'm trying to vertically align text within a text box. Which should be simple enough, and certainly used to be in the older versions of word. However, I just cannot find it anywhere.

Help within Word supposedly tells you how to do it, but the icon it refers to just doesn't seem to exist in my version (see screen grab attached).

My initial assumption was that I am just being stupid - and I may still be - but I've since checked and rechecked all the obvious places (via the 'ribbon', menu bar/format, and right click/format) and anywhere else I can think of.

Any ideas?!

 

[Pharmscott]

I don't think it's you - it's hard! The screen grab is about aligning the text itself, horizontally versus vertically (i.e. reads sideways top to bottom). That is not what you are looking for.

I found alignment for the box but alas, it centers the box on the page, not the text in the box. So, I then found the correct function (I think) on the Format tab. But it doesn't work for me! I can center the text horizontally (as you have) but no matter what I choose, the text stays on top.

One thing I notice is that when I select all the text, there is a large blank area below the text (like having extra space or line breaks after the text - but none are really there!). I think Word is centering on that extra space; some sort of glitch.

 

[mojolicious]

My daughters do this sort of this thing for their school work in Word 2011, and it's an absolute nightmare. I swear Word 5.1 was better; it was certainly more precise and more keyboard-driven. Now it's all wafty boxes whose dimensions and positions are a mystery (without a lot of mouse clicks).

I'm slowly teaching them about section breaks and columns and stylesheets and such stuff, which reduces their usage of text boxes. Boxes containing imported content are still a problem, though.

Sorry. This has nothing to do with your issue, and everything to do with a fraught couple of hours of school project work this evening. Good luck!

 

[korkale]

I don't think it's you - it's hard! The screen grab is about aligning the text itself, horizontally versus vertically (i.e. reads sideways top to bottom). That is not what you are looking for.

I found alignment for the box but alas, it centers the box on the page, not the text in the box. So, I then found the correct function (I think) on the Format tab. But it doesn't work for me! I can center the text horizontally (as you have) but no matter what I choose, the text stays on top.

One thing I notice is that when I select all the text, there is a large blank area below the text (like having extra space or line breaks after the text - but none are really there!). I think Word is centering on that extra space; some sort of glitch.

Well I'm at least relieved it's not just me!

You do seem to have found the right icon - even if it won't work. I still can't find the same thing within the format menu in my version.

My format bar doesn't look like yours in other ways too. Regardless of whether I'm drawing a textbox or shape, I don't have the 'Shape Styles' or 'Text styles' bits of the format bar, or indeed the Position icon at the far right of your screen grab.

The version of Word 11 I'm using is 14.2.0 - is this the same as yours?

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Sorry. This has nothing to do with your issue, and everything to do with a fraught couple of hours of school project work this evening. Good luck!

I feel your pain - I was progressing with a project I've been putting off for ages and was completely derailed by this seemingly simple task. It's SO annoying!

 

[Pharmscott]

The version of Word 11 I'm using is 14.2.0 - is this the same as yours?

I'm using 14.4.1 and I'm in the U.S. if that matters. Have you tried checking for an update (if you don't have auto-update enabled)?

 

[mojolicious]

Office application preferences are user-specific rather than global; can you check the menu bars on another user account? Failing that you could always create new prefs and try again.

Re your version of Word, 14.2.0 is over two years old. The updates since then have largely been concerned with security issues, but it's conceivable that there's been some change to Word's functionality/menus (you'd have to look at every increment to see what changes have been made). You should certainly install the update – 14.4.2

 

[kryten2]

Seems to work fine if this is what you want or am I missing something.

 

[korkale]

Sorted! Thanks.

I installed the updates incrementally, and it worked fine in both 14.4.1 and 14.4.2 - there are a number of other changes to the format menus as well which fixes a few other things I couldn't find.

I only downloaded Office 2011 when I bought the MBA earlier this week - schoolgirl error to assume that the downloaded version was up to date (though it hadn't since updated automatically despite being set to do so).

 

[Pharmscott]

Seems to work fine if this is what you want or am I missing something.

Strange. Doing that exact same thing on my machine and the text just stays at the top. I see that yours is in a different language. Perhaps the US version has a bug?