These two tools, when used together, turn MS Word into a graphic design layout tool that is more powerful and easier to use than almost anything I have seen on the market today!
The reason it’s so powerful is this:
Whatever you can draw on your screen is what will appear on the paper, aligned perfectly as you see it on the screen.
This may not sound like anything big, but the crucial element is the alignment.
Some graphic design programs allow you to draw and design thousands of fancy shapes and fancy special effects…Which is all fine and well...
But what happens when you try to print them?
The picture appears at random places on the sheet of paper so that there is no real way to determine what your print will look like!
This is very frustrating to say the least!
You expect and need your prints to look the way you design, centered or aligned on the page down to the millimeter!
These fancy graphic design programs are good for designing graphics, but not for actually printing.
If this sounds like gibberish to you and you have no idea what I’m talking about, try using any graphic design program (like paint shop or fireworks).
Create an 8.5 x 11 inch canvas, type some text and shapes and starbursts like you were trying to design a 1 page, 8.5 x 11 mailing brochure.
Then print out a few pages and see if the alignment is anywhere even near satisfactory!
You’ll see that for the life of you you can’t figure how to make the print alignment work!
But with MS Word, your prints will all be aligned perfectly! Down to the millimeter as they are shown on the page!
I’ll go into more detail later, but this is one of the main reasons why I like this program so much.
So anyways, switch to MS Word right now and try experimenting with the “drawing tools” and “text boxes”.