Arranging, aligning, and distributing graphics

Microsoft Office Word 2003

Multiple drawing objects on a drawing canvas

This example shows furniture shapes arranged within a drawing canvas. The drawing canvas helps you keep parts of your drawing together, which is especially helpful if your drawing consists of several shapes.

The drawing canvas also provides a frame-like boundary between your drawing and the rest of your document. By default, the drawing canvas has no border or background, but you can apply formatting to the drawing canvas as you would any drawing object.

You can shrink the drawing canvas so that it tightly fits around your drawing objects. You can also expand the drawing object and drawing canvas at the same time, or you can expand the drawing independently of the drawing canvas.

If you want to add a picture to your drawing, you can set the picture's wrapping style to floating and then drag the picture onto the drawing canvas.

If you do not want to use the drawing canvas, you can drag the drawing object off the drawing canvas, select the drawing canvas, and then delete it.

ShowAligning drawing objects

You can line up two or more drawing objects by their edges, centers (horizontally), or middles (vertically). You can also align one or more drawing objects relative to the entire page, drawing canvas, or other anchor.

ShowDistributing drawing objects

You can distribute drawing objects equal distances from each other— vertically, horizontally, or in relation to the drawing canvas. You can align and distribute pictures, but you must first change the text-wrapping style from Inline with text to another text-wrapping style.