To insert a new equation via the Equation gallery, click the Equation button in the Symbol group on the Insert tab, then click the arrow below the Equation button and click an equation in the Equation gallery, or press Alt+=. Once an equation is inserted, the contextual Equation Tools appear, as shown in Figure 18-2. The Design tab contains a large collection of tools, symbols, and mathematical structures you can use to insert and control equations.

Figure 18-2. The contextual Equation Tools provide the tools, options, symbols, and structures necessary to meet most of your equation building needs.

Though Word 2010 provides some common built-in equations, chances are that if your content requires this kind of high-end equation, you will probably need to build many of your own. To help you create your equations, the Design tab offers all sorts of tools you can use to add the various elements to your equation. In the Symbols group, you’ll find a large collection of math-related symbols and structures. To access the symbol sets, click the More arrow in the Symbols gallery. To access additional symbol sets, click the arrow next to Symbol Set, as shown in Figure 18-3. For a list of symbol sets and their descriptions, see Table 18-1.

Figure 18-3. Word 2010 offers several symbol sets that you can use to construct your equation.

In addition to numbers, letters, and symbols, most equations also require mathematical structures. The Structures group on the Design tab provides structures you can insert and then customize if necessary by filling placeholders (small dotted boxes) with values. Available structures are grouped into the following categories: Fraction, Script, Radical, Integral, Large Operator, Bracket, Function, Accent, Limit And Log, Operator, and Matrix. Figure 18-4 shows the gallery that appears when you click the Radical tool.

Figure 18-4. Word provides a large collection of mathematical structures that you can use to build equations.

The process of constructing your equation is a simple matter of adding the Equation content control, and then typing what you want to add and clicking the structure and symbols you want to use. Word inserts what you type and click as you build the equation, as shown in the following illustration:

When you insert an equation, it appears in what’s called a content control, which is a kind of content placeholder for interactive elements on your page. You can use the tools in the Structures and Symbols groups on the Equation Tools Design tab to build your equation, or you can click the Equation Options button on the right side of the equation to change the way the equation is displayed (see Figure 18-5). Here’s what you can use the different options to do:

There are a number of settings being used behind the scenes to help you construct your equations as easily as possible. You can display and change those settings by displaying and updating the choices in the Equation Options dialog box. To display the dialog box (see Figure 18-6), click the dialog launcher in the lower-right corner of the Tools group on the Equation Tools Design tab.

You can use the options in the Equation Options dialog box to instruct Word which font you want to use for your equations as well as how you want the equations formatted on the page. You can also set AutoCorrect options (more about that in a minute) as well as set the default values you want to be applied to all equations you create. Click the Defaults button to set these values as the default; Word will prompt you to confirm that you really want to apply these settings because all documents that use the Normal.dotx template will be affected by the change. After you’re done entering your settings, click OK to return to the document page.

Figure 18-6. Choose your preferences for equations in the Equation Options dialog box.

If you are particularly fond of the equation you just created and you think you will use it in other documents you prepare, you can save it to the Equation gallery so it is ready to be inserted on the page whenever you need it. To save the equation you’ve added, click the Equation and then click the Equation Options arrow in the lower-right corner of the control. From the list that displays, choose Save As New Equation. The Create New Building Block dialog box appears, as you see in Figure 18-7.

Figure 18-7. Add the specifics of your new equation in the Create New Building Block dialog box.

Type a name (choose one that will help you remember the equation content) and then choose a Category for the equation. You can also enter a description if you’d like and click Options to choose whether the content is inserted by itself, or placed in its own paragraph or on its own page. Click OK after you finish entering the information; the equation is added at the top of the Equations gallery.

Word 2010 makes adding text boxes a simple task using the Text Box gallery, which is found on the Insert tab in the Text group. An example of the Text Box gallery is shown in Figure 18-10.

Figure 18-10. The Text Box gallery provides preformatted, theme-enabled text boxes.

The Text Box gallery includes various text box styles. For example, you can use simple text boxes that can be moved and positioned anywhere on a page to create what is called a pull quote (the middle text box in Figure 18-9), or you can choose those that are automatically placed on the edge of the page, to create a sidebar (the text box on the right in Figure 18-9).

You can also use the Draw Text Box command, found toward the bottom of the Text Box gallery, to manually draw and insert text boxes. However, if you need more than a standard text box, you might find that starting with a text box from the gallery and making minor formatting modifications, such as changing it to another shape, achieves faster results.

As you create text boxes in your document, you can move and resize them in the same manner that you move and resize drawing objects—dragging them by their edges and sizing handles. To move a text box, point to the border, watch for the Move mouse pointer (multi-directional arrows), then click and drag the text box to another location. To resize a text box, you can drag the sizing handles (the small blue boxes and circles shown in Figure 18-11) to change the width and height of the text box.

Figure 18-11. Use the blue boxes and circles surrounding text boxes to reshape text into more interesting configurations.

If the text box is formatted as a shape, it can be rotated by dragging the green circle (only the shape rotates, the text stays horizontal). Some shapes can be reshaped by dragging the yellow diamond.

After you create text boxes, you are ready to add text and formatting. You can insert text into containers in a few predictable ways such as typing, pasting copied information, and dragging content into the text box. If you are creating a newsletter-style document that will consist of multiple linked text boxes, see the Inside Out tip titled Inside Out: Linked Text Boxes: Room to Edit for instructions on creating the content in another document and inserting it into the text boxes.

In addition to inserting text, you can insert graphics, tables, fields, and content controls into text boxes. However, there are items that you cannot include in text boxes, among them are the following:

By default, when you create a text box as opposed to inserting a text box from the Text Box gallery, it appears as a white (not transparent) box surrounded by thin (0.75 point) black lines. Fortunately, text boxes don’t have to be limited to plain white rectangles strategically placed around your document. You can format text boxes in the same manner that you format other drawing objects. For example, by using the formatting options found on the contextual Drawing Tools tab, you can apply fill and line colors by using the Shape Fill and Shape Outline tools; apply Shape Styles; change the text box to another shape; and add effects, glow, and more. To format text boxes using the Format tab (shown in the following image), select the text box you want to format and then click the appropriate tool.

In addition to the formatting tools on the Format tab, you can format text boxes using the Text Box options in the Format Shape dialog box. Specifically, you can control the position of text inside text boxes, and you can have Word automatically resize a text box to accommodate the complete text of a story.

Changing Text Box Shapes

The beauty of using shapes is that you can change your mind regarding which shape you want to use at any time. Changing the shape of a text box is similar to changing shapes that don’t contain text. To do so, ensure that you’re working in Print Layout view and then follow these simple steps:

1. Click the text box you want to modify. To select multiple text boxes, press and hold Shift while clicking each text box.

2. On the Insert tab, click Shapes then select another shape from the gallery.

All selected text boxes take on the new shape but retain all other format settings, such as color and internal margins.

Inside Out: Set Tight Text Wrapping Around Text in Text Boxes

When a text box is placed in a paragraph and the line color for a text box has been removed, the text surrounding the text box continues to wrap to the boundaries of the text box, as opposed to wrapping to the text inside of the text box. In some instances, you might want to modify this behavior and wrap text around the text shown in the document instead of the invisible boundaries of the text box. In order to achieve the desired results, you can use the new Tight Wrap options for text box, found in the Paragraph dialog box on the Line And Page Breaks tab, shown in the following image:

The Tight Wrap options apply to paragraphs that wrap around a text box, rather than the text inside of the text box.

To effectively use the Tight Wrap options, follow these steps:

1. Click a text box to active it.

2. On the Format tab, in the Shape Styles group, click the dialog launcher. In the Format Shape dialog box, set the following options:

   • On the Fill and Line Color tabs, set Fill Color to No Fill and Line Color to No Line

   • On the Text Box tab, set the Vertical Alignment to Middle

3. On the Home tab, in the Paragraph group, click the dialog launcher. In the Paragraph dialog box, set the following options:

   • On the Indents and Spacing tab, set the Alignment to Center

   • On the Line And Page Breaks tab, set Tight Wrap to All

Depending on the text box placement and the amount of text in the text box, you might need to modify the Internal Margins for the text box (found on the Text Box tab in the Format Text Box dialog box) and experiment with the other Tight Wrap options, such as First And Last Lines, First Line Only, or Last Line Only in order to obtain the best text wrapping results for your specific text box.

After you link text boxes, you can easily jump from one text box to another. To do so, select a text box that’s part of a linked series of text boxes. Position your insertion point at the end of text in a filled text box and then press the right arrow key. You can also jump to the preceding text box by positioning your insertion point at the beginning of the text in a text box and then pressing the left arrow key.

You can copy or move a story (including text boxes and their contents) to another document or another location in the same document. If your story consists of multiple linked text boxes that aren’t contained on a single drawing canvas, you must select all of the linked text boxes in the story before you can copy the story and text boxes. If they are on a single drawing canvas, you can select any text box in the series of linked text boxes and copy the entire story and the selected text box to another location. Or, you can select all of the text boxes on the drawing canvas to copy the story and all of the associated text boxes.

When you copy one or a few linked text boxes (but not an entire story) that are not on a drawing canvas, you copy only the selected text box or boxes without the content. When you copy a single text box that is part of an entire story that appears in text boxes on a single drawing canvas, you copy the entire story along with the selected text box. This means that when you paste the text box, you will probably need to resize it to see the entire story or will need to add text boxes and link them to the newly inserted text box.

If you want to copy an entire story along with all of the text boxes containing the story, you need to select all of the text boxes before copying them, as described in the following procedure:

To copy or move content that appears within a text box without copying or moving the text box itself, select just the text or content in the same way that you select standard text and content and then copy or move it in the same way you normally copy or move content in Word documents. To select and copy all text in a linked story, click in the story, press Ctrl+A, and either copy and paste or drag the text to the desired location. You can select all of the text in a story by using Ctrl+A regardless of whether the story’s text boxes are on a drawing canvas.

You can break links between text boxes just as easily as you create them. When you break a link, you remove only the link between the selected text box and the text box that follows it in the series—you don’t remove all of the links in a linked series. Essentially, when you break a link, you divide a story into two series of linked text boxes or segments. By default, the first series of linked text boxes contains the story, and linked text boxes in the second series are empty.

To break a link between text boxes, follow these steps:

At this point, text stops flowing in the last text box before the broken link, and the second series of linked text boxes are empty. If the text doesn’t fit in the first series of linked text boxes after you break a link, you can create and link additional text boxes or enlarge the existing text boxes to provide enough room to display the entire text.

To delete a text box, you simply select a text box and press Delete or right-click the text box border and click Cut. Normally, performing this action on a nonlinked text box deletes both the text box and its contents. In contrast, when you delete a text box that’s part of a linked series of text boxes, the text from the deleted text box automatically flows into the remaining linked text boxes. If the remaining text boxes aren’t large enough to properly display the story in its entirety, you must resize the remaining text boxes, create additional text boxes, or edit your story to fit in the existing text boxes. Keep in mind that Word doesn’t notify you when text overflows the boundaries of the final text box, so you should always be extra diligent about checking the flow of stories and making sure that no text is hidden.

When you’re ready to add an object to your Word page, click the Object arrow in the Text group on the Insert tab and choose Object. In the Object dialog box (Figure 18-13), click one of the following tabs:

On the Create New tab in the Object dialog box, you can choose the type of object you want to create and Word launches the necessary program so you can do it. You can create a wide range of objects, directly from within Word—Adobe Acrobat PDF files, bitmap images, Excel worksheets and charts, PowerPoint slides and shows, Microsoft Works documents, and more.

Scroll through the list and click the type of object you want to create. Click the file type you want and then, if you want the object to be displayed as an icon in your text (as opposed to appearing as the created object), select the Display as icon check box. (If you select this check box, another option becomes available so that you can choose the icon used to represent the object.) Click OK and Word opens the program needed to create the new object.

If you want to add an object you’ve already created to your Word document, click the Create From File tab in the Object dialog box (see Figure 18-14). Click Browse to navigate to the folder containing the file you want to use, select it, and click OK.

Figure 18-14. Use Create From File to add an existing object to your Word pages.

Back in the Object dialog box, select the Link To File check box if you want to maintain a link to the original file. This way, if you make changes to that source file, they will be reflected in your document. Click Open to add the object to your page.