Cannot align objects in a drawing canvas

Anonymous
2010-07-08T15:31:05+00:00

I have several clipart objects in a drawing canvas and I want to align them with each other and within the canvas. The alignment options are all greyed out regardless of whether I have "align to page" or "align to canvas" selected.

This happens in Word 2010 on both Windows 7 and Windows Vista

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Anonymous
2010-09-02T09:38:03+00:00

Summarising:

1 - Inside the canvas you cannot align objects

2 - You have to move object outside the canvas in order to align them, BUT:

3 - Outside the canvas you cannot use connectors...

A bit frustrating for people who work every single day with word...

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  1. Anonymous
    2010-07-09T01:13:45+00:00

    These options are available for me:

    1. The Align commands under the Picture Tools, Format ribbon only work when you have a picture selected

    2.  The Align commands under Drawing Tools are only available when you have the canvas selected, and most of them are grayed out because they don't apply to a canvas.

    If this answer solves your problem, please check, Mark as Answered. If this answer helps, please click the Vote as Helpful button. Cheers Shane Devenshire

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  2. Anonymous
    2010-07-09T13:32:15+00:00

    hi Shane

    I have tried this with clip art, shapes, as well as pictures inside a drawing canvas. Depending on what you have selected, you may get the Drawing Tools Format tab or the Pictures Tools Format tab. While in the Drawing Canvas with multiple objects selected the Align options (on either the Drawing Tools tab or Pictures Tools Format tab) are all greyed out. In Word 2007, however, there was also an option in the Align command that included "Align to Canvas" - which is no longer available in 2010.

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  3. Anonymous
    2010-07-13T15:07:03+00:00

    I just also noticed that after changing the Text Wrap of the Canvas itself (to tight or square), I can't align it to the margins (align to right for example should kick it over to the right margin). All options are greyed out too.

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  4. Anonymous
    2010-08-15T04:42:09+00:00

    In case Word 2010 developers see this thread, what we want to do in office 2010, is what the last bullet (under "Add a drawing" section) in the following page explains for Word 2007.

    http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/word-help/add-a-drawing-to-a-document-HA010097040.aspx

    If you want to have a picture separated from the text, you would naturally put them in Canvas (I always do that to easier manage the document's look). In that case, all the align options gets disabled. I think this look more like a bug rather than a feature!

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