2,001 Tips
Applications
Desktop Publishing/Graphics

Microsoft Publisher 95

Motivated to Rotate

To rotate text, use WordArt, an OLE server application shipped with Publisher. Publisher is unable to rotate an imported graphic, so you must rotate the graphic before importing it.

Get Started!

Skip the Start Up dialog box by opening the TaskBar editor and choosing the Advanced tab. Right-click on Publisher and choose Properties from the drop-down menu. Select the Shortcut tab from the Properties dialog box and change the Target to mspub.exe /b. Publisher will now bypass the Start Up dialog box and open a blank publication.

Tag, You're It

Logo Wizard's seventh dialog box contains a text box for adding a tag line to your logo. You can separate the tag line into two lines by pressing Ctrl+Enter at the point you wish to break the line. The tag line can be 40 characters long, with Ctrl+Enter counting as one character.

Don't Get Hijaaked

Publisher 2.0 and Hijaak Pro sometimes conflict. If you try to import a graphic to Publisher and get a message saying you don't have a filter for the graphic, check System.ini. Remove the Hijaak filters (those beginning with the letters HJ) from the MS Graphics Import Filters section. Restart Windows. Hijaak will still work as advertised and Publisher will be able to import the graphic.

King-Size Copy

The maximum size of text you can place in a WordArt object using the toolbar drop-down list is 500 points. If you need text larger than 500 points, use the Best Fit option from the list. You can then make the text larger by dragging the resize handles of the WordArt frame.

A Black-and-White Case

To print white text on a black background, select the text, choose Character from the Format menu, and select white as the color for the text. Next select the text frame and choose Format/Shading. Set black as the color for the text box and click on OK. Some printers will convert all text to black, regardless of the color selected. If you own such a printer, select the Print TrueType As Graphic option in the Setup window of the Printers option in Control Panel.

Pick Your Palette

In older versions of Publisher, the scratch area is always white. In Publisher 95, the color is based on the Application Background color of your Windows color scheme. To change the color of the scratch area, open Start/Settings/Control Panel. Open the Display icon and click on the Appearance tab. From the Item list, select Application Background, choose the color you would like the scratch area to be and click on OK.

Banish Those Black Bullets

To match the color of your bullets to colored text, place the cursor where you want the first bullet to appear. Go to Tools/Insert Symbol. Select the font and character you want as a bullet and click on OK. Now select the bullet and choose Format/Character. Select a color for the bullet and choose OK. Use tabs to separate the text from the bullet.

Just the Fax

If you're using Microsoft Fax in Windows 95, you can send a fax directly from Publisher by printing to the Microsoft Fax driver. Go to the File/Printer Setup. From the list of installed printers, select Microsoft Fax and click on OK. Select File/Print. Choose the pages you wish to fax and then click on OK. The New Fax Wizard will start, and guide you through sending your document.

Table Tabs

You can set and use tabs in cells created with the Table tool. Click on the selected cell, and the tab and indents ruler will be displayed on top of the horizontal ruler. Click the ruler where you want the tab stop to appear and the tab will be set. To move to a tab stop within a cell, press the Ctrl+Tab key combination. If you press the Tab key alone, you will move to the next cell.

Unwrap Your Text

You may want to cover up text by placing another object over part of the text frame. By default, text in a text frame will wrap around any other frame placed on top of it. To prevent this, select the text frame and select Text Frame Properties on the Format menu. Now clear the Wrap Text Around Objects check box in the Options section and click on OK.

The Next Text You See ...

You can set or change the default text style by choosing File/New Publication and then selecting the Text tool from the tool palette. Choose the desired font and point size from the dialog box. Choose File/Save and name the file NORMAL.PUB. The file should be saved in the Publisher template directory. When you open new files, the default text will adhere to the new settings.

Set the Table

If page numbers look correct on screen but print as the pound symbol (#), you may have inserted the page numbers into a table frame rather than a text frame. To solve this problem, select Page/Go To Background. Click the frame containing the Page # text and open the Edit menu. If Delete Table is a choice on the menu list, that indicates you used a table frame. Delete the table frame and then enter the page number in a text frame.

Cast a Spell

If you can't load the spelling checker or dictionary, the problem may be in the custom dictionary file. Using Notepad, open the file CUSTOM.DIC in the WINDOWS\MSAPPS\PROOF directory. Delete any non-alphanumeric characters and make sure there's a hard return after the last letter of the last word in the file. Save the file and try running the spell checker again.

Scratch

Use the scratch area to quickly move an object from one page to another. Frames on the scratch area remain there, even when you change pages. Switch to the new page and drag your frame from the scratch area into the new page.

[ Go to 2,001 Tips Table of Contents ]