A sentence forming a circle...

Read http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=69648

I use Office XP as well and I managed to get the phrase "The Toastmasters Alliance Northern Region XXXXXX" into a circular ring, but it took some manipulation.

I found in the end I had to do it in two halves, the top curve with "The Toastmasters Alliance", without a comma as it looked strange with, and the bottom curve with "Northern Region XXXXXX", although you may want to reconsider the X's. Small x's looked slightly better if used.

I did manage initially to get a complete circular ring with the full sentence inside it, but the letters curved around the circle so that the bottom half were upside down. I don't think you mean that and I couldn't find a way to correct it. But I will show the process I went through.

With Word open to a blank sheet you need the Drawing toolbar showing, View > Toolbars > Drawing.

Click on the "Insert Word Art" icon in this toolbar. Select any shape to begin with. I chose the 3rd one. The "Edit Word Text" dialog box appears.

Insert your full text and change the font to something small, like 10 or 12. You can always amend it later. Place two spaces before the first word, two before the break, (eg before Northern), and two after the last x. Don't press Enter, that just gives a line break. Instead click OK.

Your WordArt will appear on the page. Now right click it and select "Show WordArt toolbar", and a smaller floating toolbar will appear. Select the "ABC" icon, for Wordart shape.

Now select the circle, (thin line, not thick). Your WordArt will change to circular and you can drag the corners into a larger circle. Right clicking allows you to change formats, fonts, colors, etc.

If you got this far you should have a circle of your sentence. But the bottom half is upside down. If that's what you need then you can manipulate that as you wish.

However, if you want both top and bottom halves to be "right way up", I found you have to use the "Select Wordart shape" option to select a top half curve, edit the text and format it how you wish, then on the page itself click the mouse above the shape to place the cursor at the beginning, then Tab down, (the tab key next to the "Q" key, to place the cursor below this shape.

Then repeat the process to create a new bottom half circle.

It seems you can position this just below the first one by dragging it, but you will have to use the yellow diamond shaped place holder to contort and shape either or both images the way you want. The diamond placeholder (I'm not sure what else to call it), appears when you click the image

The next problem is that these images are just the words, and no circular borders. I couldn't see how to show the borders so I used the Drawing toolbar's "Oval" icon to draw two circles in a concentric ring inside and outside the two Wordart shapes. I had to right click each circle, select "Order" to "Send behind text".

That's how I did it.

I wonder if anyone here has a simpler way?

Mark

..using a graphics editing program. Some, e.g. Photoshop Elements 5, enable you to create "Word Art", which you can move about easier than what is offered in a Word processor. Then copy and paste, or "insert" into Word. A "card making" program, e.g. those from "Broderbund" may offer better facilities for creating that "ring".

If you have access to WordPerfect, a real wordprocessor, hit Insert, Graphics, Text Art, and you can do your desired "badge" in any font, shape, color, size, etc. you want.