Creating a non-standard Microsoft Word 2007 letterhead template

June 25, 2010 10:41 AM

I'm creating a non-standard (for Word, that is) letterhead template. I need help making the logo et al. stay in one place.

The letterhead design has a narrow column on the left hand side of the page. In a text box is an image and text. I want the text box to appear on the first page only, anchored/locked in the upper left hand corner.

How do I stop the text box from moving down the page? I have word wrap on. It works until the document is longer than a page. Once it hits two pages, the text box moves to the second page.

I have placed it on the regular page as well as in header/footer view. Neither results in the text box being anchored to the first page.

It is not an inline text box. Word wrap is on. FWIW, if I insert one of the canned text boxes in Word 2007, it does the same thing.

Any help appreciated.

posted by elle.jeezy to Technology (5 answers total)

Best answer: Headers/footers are tied to the 'section' of the text between them (the regular document text). Try adding a Continuous Section Break as the first thing in the document, cursor BEFORE that break, get into the header with View > Header, and place whatever letterhead elements you want in the header. You can position them outside the strict header bounds with a right-click "Format [element]" dialog. Then put all your document text after that first section break.
posted by cowbellemoo at 10:59 AM on June 25, 2010

If you right click your text box and click More Layout Options, you can check the box to Lock Anchor.
posted by msbutah at 10:59 AM on June 25, 2010

You can also try creating a table for your header, just show no borders. Then you can place the text directly below the logo, and it will stay put, without dealing with Word's annoying "picture" settings.
posted by dbmcd at 1:07 PM on June 25, 2010

I would probably try to do it with columns and breaks. If you insert a break at the end of the first page, you can make multiple columns on that first page. You can resize the column divider to whatever width you want.
posted by reddot at 6:13 PM on June 25, 2010

Response by poster: reddot: the problem is, i have to release this template into "the wild" and i have to make it co-worker proof. they just want to type, type, type and not have to think about columns, and sections or anything other than type, type, typing like they always do.

cowbellmooʻs answer was best, as long as they donʻt backspace and delete the section marker. to combat that, I put the date in the template so they know where to start typing. iʻm sure theyʻll mess that up too, but for now....itʻs working.
posted by elle.jeezy at 6:46 PM on June 25, 2010