Comments on: How do I flip my textbox?

Question: How do I flip my textbox?

szechuan — Sun, 25 Jun 2006 23:00:02 -0800

How can I flip text horizontally, without converting it into a picture?

I've been charged with creating invites for our firm ball. I am trying to print the image and text onto transparencies, but in reverse (or mirror image), so that you will look at the shiny "non-printed" side.
Ideally, I'd like to just group my text and image, and flip horizontally. But that seems beyond the capabilities of any of the MS Office products I'm stuck using (Publisher, Powerpoint, Word...) Google seems to confirm that you need to convert the text box into an image to flip it horizontally, which results in a degradation of quality, and the inability to mailmerge the names on the invites (preferred, but not compulsory).

Anyone think of a way around this? I don't have access to Photoshop on our standard office machines, but could probably arrange it if that's easiest. Or is there some simpler way I'm missing to print in reverse?

I figure there must be t-shirt printing Mefites out there who know how!

By: JPigford

JPigford — Sun, 25 Jun 2006 23:03:55 -0800

Most printers have an option to flip/rotate/mirror/etc within the printer options.

By: null terminated

null terminated — Sun, 25 Jun 2006 23:10:50 -0800

You could print it on a transparency and then copy that. You'd lose some quality though.

By: nathan_teske

nathan_teske — Sun, 25 Jun 2006 23:33:18 -0800

... turn the transparency over before printing?

By: szechuan

szechuan — Mon, 26 Jun 2006 00:28:38 -0800

Thanks Jpigford, the print options do indeed have a flip option, but it appears to be grayed out.

nathan_teske, whichever way the transparency goes through the printer, the "shiny" side is the reverse of the print side. I need the image to mirror for this to work.

By: Rhomboid

Rhomboid — Mon, 26 Jun 2006 01:18:24 -0800

You could try printing to a PostScript or PDF file and then mirroring that.

By: Chunder

Chunder — Mon, 26 Jun 2006 01:21:24 -0800

One thought - perhaps it would be possible to use the mail merge as normal, but insert some user macro code in the "BeforePrint" section of Word, so that the textbox is automatically converted and flipped?

Not sure of the exact syntax required (I'm more of an Excel VBA fella; never got to grips with Word VBA) but I'm sure that there's somewhere out there who can take this "specification" and build something for you :)

By: b33j

b33j — Mon, 26 Jun 2006 03:44:57 -0800

You can do it with WordArt (MS Word). Once you have your text in the box, grab one of the middle handles on the side and pull it right across the WordArt box and to the other side. Works for upside down too. Using a corner handle might work but it buggers up both dimensions (height and width) whereas the middle handles just play with one or the other of those.

I don't believe this will work with a textbox.

By: weapons-grade pandemonium

weapons-grade pandemonium — Mon, 26 Jun 2006 08:38:10 -0800

You could copy and paste the text into Corel Draw, flip it and print from there. The older versions of Corel are virtually free, and fun to play with.

By: weapons-grade pandemonium

weapons-grade pandemonium — Mon, 26 Jun 2006 08:42:00 -0800

In Corel, if you hold Ctrl when you grab the side and flip, it maintains the proportions.

By: neda

neda — Mon, 26 Jun 2006 16:05:03 -0800

Well, it'd be a pain to type out each line of your invitation backwards, but if you did, you could download & use a mirrored font.