flowchartmicrosoft wordmicrosoft-word-2010shapes
I'm drawing a flow chart in Word 2010 with the drawing canvas and shapes. I have a subset of the canvas that I want to visually "group" together (maybe draw a dotted box around these shapes) so that I can then label it as "ongoing" (in contrast to events in the flow chart that only happen once and complete).
How can I create this visualized grouping in Word 2010?
On Windows Word 2016, the option is called New Canvas Drawing and is at the bottom of Insert tab->Illustrations group->Shapes dropdown.
There is no such option on Mac Word 2016 (or 2011 for that matter). Word VBA on Mac does not currently have the AddCanvas command that the Windows version has, either, so it does not look as if you can create a macro to add one. (If you try to use the command to insert a shape of type msoCanvas, you get something that looks like a No Entry road sign, and it does not work like a canvas).
Because the canvas feature is not provided on Mac, it is difficult to recommend using them, as they may not actually be supported.
However, if you create a document on Windows Word and insert a canvas, then open that in Mac Word 2016 (or 2011), you get a Canvas that appears to work in a similar way on Mac. So if you have such a document, you could
Then use the autotext feature to insert the canvas.
If you do not have such a document, you can use the XML I have provided below. To do that,
You should then be able to open canvas.xml in Word. The canvas probably won't be visible until you click on it (it's at the top left of the document in the main text area).
Then save the canvas as an autotext, as suggested earlier.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" standalone="yes"?>
<?mso-application progid="Word.Document"?>
<pkg:package xmlns:pkg="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/2006/xmlPackage">
<pkg:part
pkg:name="/_rels/.rels"
pkg:contentType="application/vnd.openxmlformats-package.relationships+xml"
pkg:padding="512">
<pkg:xmlData>
<Relationships xmlns="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/package/2006/relationships">
<Relationship
Id="rId1"
Type="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/officeDocument/2006/relationships/officeDocument"
Target="word/document.xml" />
</Relationships>
</pkg:xmlData>
</pkg:part>
<pkg:part
pkg:name="/word/_rels/document.xml.rels"
pkg:contentType="application/vnd.openxmlformats-package.relationships+xml"
pkg:padding="256">
<pkg:xmlData>
<Relationships xmlns="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/package/2006/relationships">
<Relationship
Id="rId1"
Type="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/officeDocument/2006/relationships/settings"
Target="settings.xml" />
</Relationships>
</pkg:xmlData>
</pkg:part>
<pkg:part
pkg:name="/word/document.xml"
pkg:contentType="application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document.main+xml">
<pkg:xmlData>
<w:document
xmlns:a="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/drawingml/2006/main"
xmlns:w="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/wordprocessingml/2006/main"
xmlns:wp="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/drawingml/2006/wordprocessingDrawing"
xmlns:wpc="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/word/2010/wordprocessingCanvas">
<w:body>
<w:p>
<w:r>
<w:drawing>
<wp:anchor distT="0" distB="0" distL="0" distR="0" simplePos="0" relativeHeight="0" behindDoc="0" locked="0" layoutInCell="1"
allowOverlap="1">
<wp:simplePos x="0" y="0" />
<wp:positionH relativeFrom="column">
<wp:posOffset>0</wp:posOffset>
</wp:positionH>
<wp:positionV relativeFrom="paragraph">
<wp:posOffset>0</wp:posOffset>
</wp:positionV>
<wp:extent cx="4000000" cy="3000000" />
<wp:wrapNone />
<wp:docPr id="1" name="Canvas 1" />
<a:graphic>
<a:graphicData uri="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/word/2010/wordprocessingCanvas">
<wpc:wpc>
<wpc:bg />
<wpc:whole />
</wpc:wpc>
</a:graphicData>
</a:graphic>
</wp:anchor>
</w:drawing>
</w:r>
</w:p>
</w:body>
</w:document>
</pkg:xmlData>
</pkg:part>
<pkg:part
pkg:name="/word/settings.xml"
pkg:contentType="application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.settings+xml">
<pkg:xmlData>
<w:settings xmlns:w="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/wordprocessingml/2006/main">
<w:compat>
<w:compatSetting w:name="compatibilityMode" w:uri="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/word" w:val="15" />
</w:compat>
</w:settings>
</pkg:xmlData>
</pkg:part>
</pkg:package>
To draw a horizontal, vertical or 45° line, after selecting the type of line in "Shapes", press Shift then drag to draw the line. You're clicking once instead of doing a mouse down at the starting point and then lift the finger (mouse up) at the end of the line
In any Word versions the special keys to draw has always been:
You can even put the starting and/or ending points at the anchor points of special objects (like textboxes) so that when you move those objects around, the lines will also moved automatically
See Draw straight lines or align things with the ruler in PowerPoint
Best Answer
Here's a how-to screenshot:
This is the sample flowchart already drawn with shapes.
Draw a rectangle or any shape you want around the shapes (objects) you want to visually group together. As shown, the rectangle will be drawn on top of the shapes and therefore would not be visible.
Change the "Wrap Text" for the rectangle to "Behind Text", by selecting "Wrap Text" button in the Arrange group of the Format tab. As shown below, the shapes under the rectangle are now visible.
Change the "Shape Outline" of the rectangle to "Dashes" or any line style you want.
You can do this via "Text Box Styles" of the Format tab.
You can also do this via "Shape Outline" button of the Format tab.