Introduction

Adding some extra flair to an ordinary document can really make it appear more like a Newsletter or Flyer, than a regular document. There are many elements that Microsoft Office Word 2003 offers you in order to create a document that goes the extra mile.

The Drawing Canvas is a virtual working canvas that is placed in your document so as you work with the Drawing toolbar in creating and styling objects, you have a working area that doesn't affect your document. You can resize the Drawing Canvas, just as you would an object, by going to the resize handles and dragging in or out.

When working with objects, it might be helpful to have them grouped together, so that when you move or resize them, you are doing it consistently with the group of objects, instead of having to modify each one individually. Of course, if you need to change just one, you can ungroup, make the change, and then regroup them. Objects are not just AutoShapes or Clip Art, they can be lines and arrows too. All of the objects that you are inserting into your document, can be modified in a number of ways. You can change the color of the objects or lines, apply pattern fills, create shadows, and even apply a 3-D effect, or extra lighting, to your objects. You can rotate or flip them, or you can have text wrap around them in your document.

If you decide that you have a layout of your document where you are using text boxes, you can connect the text boxes together by linking them. Linked text boxes allow you to add text to a section and have it continue into another text box. You can also set up your document in column form. And for that extra touch, you can add a border around a page, or your whole document for that finished look.