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• Up to Word Drawing & Graphics
• General Concepts
  • Inline versus floating graphics
  • Inline–Floating hybrid graphics
  • The drawing layer explained
  • Wrapping
  • Manipulating graphics and drawing objects
    • Wrapping text around a graphic
    • Working with anchors
    • Unlinking a floating linked graphic
    • Unlinking an inline linked graphic
    • Selecting drawing objects behind text
    • Rotating clipart
    • Rotating or flipping text
    • Set paste inline as the default
    • Graphics formats
      • Choosing formats
      • Creating PDF output
      • File associations: restoring
      • “Gotchas”
        • Graphics display as red X's
        • Captions don't update or don't appear
        • Graphics don't display or don't print
        • Positioning floating graphics relative to page
        • Floating objects in tables are vertically aligned wrongly
        • Linked floating graphics don't show up in Edit Links
        • Preventing layout change on different computer

Working with Anchors

Article contributed by Bill Coan

When a graphic or drawing object floats, it remains anchored to a particular paragraph. If that paragraph is cut and pasted or simply displaced to a new location by text entered somewhere upstream, the anchor also moves to the new location and in general so does the floating object. That is, if a paragraph lands on a new page, the floating object anchored to it will land on the new page as well.

On the other hand, if a paragraph moves up or down without changing pages, the floating object may or may not move, depending on whether it has been positioned relative to the paragraph or the page. This setting can be controlled from the Format Picture or Format Object dialog box, under the Position Tab.

To view an anchor, you can either click on the ShowAll button ¶, or choose Options on the Tools menu, then click the View tab and place a checkmark next to Object Anchors.  You should then see something like this:

Note: Even with this option turned on, an object must be selected in order for its anchor to be visible.

Important tip: If grouping several drawing objects, it is very important that they are all anchored to the same paragraph as each other, or you're likely to get very unexpected results! You can move an anchor's position by clicking on it and dragging.