I hate Word...help!

looksee

I have just spent the evening putting together a very simple document in Word. I could have done it in half the time - or less! - in Quark, but then no-one else would be able to open it. this is to send as an attachment to an email. I can do graphic design, I am not much good with dtp.

So, can anyone help me, please?

I have a document with one page with a pic, and a second page with information that I have put in text boxes so I can move them around. Now I want to put in a third page, but of course the cursor is at the top of page 2 so the third page keeps going in in the page 2 spot. How do I put a page 3 after page 2?

I can't find any info on doing this in the help section, anyone, please?

maringo

Why didn't you do it in Quark and print/save it as a pdf. Word is my most hated package. Try going to the end of your document and insert a page break or just hard returns which should create page 3. Then print/save as PDF if thats what you need. Plenty of free pdf makers available including primo pdf among others. Neo Office (free wordprocessor spreadsheet etc) will give you a word processor - might be better than Word. Maybe if you made a new 3 page word blank doc using hard returns and brought your stuff over to that placing it where you want but it will probably drive you mad.

looksee

Thanks for your reply. I didn't do it in Quark as my experience has been that anything that has Quark in its history isn't that reliable for opening without Quark. For example a Quark PDF - though I am a bit out of touch at this stage, and of course with Quark on my computer its hard to know would it work or not.

I tried the things you mentioned, but because I have used text boxes the cursor is at the top of the page, and won't move down without moving all the text boxes, so page breaks and returns just don't work. Trying to move everything seemed like an exercise in frustration given Word's opinionated notions on what you are allowed to do!

I think I will try the Quark pdf route, it would be quicker to remake the document than mess around with Word any longer

5uspect

Word is a complete pain, I do my best to avoid it.

I do remember that you can format objects like images and text boxes to be floating - and so ignore the text. Then use page breaks to add new pages.

You could also use (shudder) PowerPoint.

maringo

"Thanks for your reply. I didn't do it in Quark as my experience has been that anything that has Quark in its history isn't that reliable for opening without Quark. For example a Quark PDF - though I am a bit out of touch at this stage, and of course with Quark on my computer its hard to know would it work or not."


Quark never a problem once you have a program to print to pdf. I use Acrobat Professional but have used other pdf makers too. Primo PDF (a freebie) gives you lots of options for the size (weight) of your pdf and is simple to use. I've used QuarkXpress over the years preparing artwork for professional printing/web etc. and you can't beat it - well maybe Indesign is just as good or better depending on your preference. Word is just a dirty word.

Kenny Logins

Try Scribus. Simple enough to pick up and it will output good quality PDFs.

castpro

Open office all the way for me. Like word but better, easier to use and free!

beauf

looksee wrote: »

I have just spent the evening putting together a very simple document in Word. I could have done it in half the time - or less! - in Quark, but then no-one else would be able to open it. this is to send as an attachment to an email. I can do graphic design, I am not much good with dtp.....

I don't understand your thinking here. Quark is a DTP application. Word isn't. You don't do DTP in Word, or layouts, its not designed for it. For some reason people think Word is a simple application like wordpad or something. It isn't. Its a sophisticated word processing application primarily aimed at business documents, and automation.

If you want a portable document, (as others have said) you use PDF.

Portable Document Format (PDF) is a file format used to represent documents in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems

If someone specifically requests word documents (usually job agencies) In Then the key to learning word is styles and accepting its not designed to keep content static on a page like in DTP.

You can do DTP like layouts in Word, and indeed automate creating of these kinda documents from a database, even build document creation and publishing systems around Word. But its you'd need a lot of experience in Word to do it.

Most people who use Word its probably complete overkill.