Even with the plethora of prefabricated shapes to choose from in Office 2011’s Media browser, you may have a hankering for some good old-fashioned simple shapes, or maybe you want to try your hand at creating your own shapes. Mixed in with the shapes are three special tools that you can use to make your own lines and shapes: Curve, Freeform, and Scribble.
Try using the Curve tool first, and after you get the hang of that one, try Freeform and Scribble.
On the Table Design tab, in the Line Style box, click No Border. Your cursor will become a paintbrush you can use to erase individual borders.
Click the Media button on the Standard toolbar to display the Media browser, if it isn’t already visible.
Click the Shapes tab and then choose Lines and Connectors from the pop-up menu.
Click the Curve tool.
The Curve tool is the one that looks like a handwritten S. When you select the Curve tool, the cursor changes into a plus sign (+) to signify it’s ready to start drawing a line as soon as you drag in the document, spreadsheet, or presentation.
Click into your document and click the cursor as you move it; then move the cursor in another direction and click again.
Your line continuously gets longer as you move the cursor around, until you double-click the mouse, which signifies the end of the line you’re drawing. Each time you click while you move the cursor, you create a point, which behaves as an axis for your line’s curves.
This sort of drawing creates Bézier curves. By doing a variation on the steps in the preceding section to create a curvy line, you can end at the same point you started and then double-click at the end of the line, which results in a closed path. When you create a closed path, you get a solid shape.
You can format lines and the borders of solid shapes with great precision. For the ultimate in precision control of your lines and shapes, right-click or Control-click your line or shape and then choose Edit Points from the pop-up menu. Each click you made when drawing the line displays as a point. Right-click a point to display the Edit Points menu. You get the same menu when working with a line or a shape.
When Edit Points is active, you can drag, add, and delete points as well as control exactly how the line behaves while it passes through each point. There’s still more! Right-click or Control-click right on top of a point. Notice the little handles that appear at the point. Drag the handles to control how the line passes through the point.
It’s often easier to work on small portions of a line by using the application’s Zoom feature to zoom in and work closer.
MS Word has a tool called Breaks which is a very handy option when it comes to breaking a section or applying page breaks. The additional space that gets embedded between sections gives a decent look to the document. However, it does not state the prominence or distinctiveness and appears more like a paragraph change.
So, I consider using horizontal lines instead. As a result there is more visual aid and enhancement in reader understandability. In this context, we will tell you how to insert horizontal lines in your document. And we will discuss three ways of doing that.
Though we have mentioned MS Word as a pivot, let me assure you that the feature is supported on entire MS Office Suite.
Using Horizontal Line Tool
It initially took me some time to figure out that such a support existed on MS Word (and other MS Office tools). Follow the steps and choose a line that you like (there are the formal black and white ones and colorful and designer ones).
Step 1: Navigate to Page Layout -> Page Background and click on the icon for Page Borders.
Step 2: On the Borders and Shading dialog that appears, click on the button reading Horizontal Line (bottom left of the window).
Step 3: Choose a line and click on Ok to have it inserted at the current cursor position.
Step 4: If you are still not satisfied with the look and feel of the line, you can right-click on it and launch the formatting options.
Using Insert Shapes Tool
Though a lame way of accomplishing the task, I used this method till I figured out the above one. Truly speaking, sometimes it serves as a quicker option than what we discussed. Moreover, there is difference in the formatting options that come along.
To insert one, you need to navigate to the Insert tab -> Shapes and select line shape. Then drag the mouse over the required length and position of the document.
Using Keyboard Shortcuts
The above two methods are fundamentally easy and convenient to insert lines. But I am sure that the keyboard users are not yet satisfied. So, here’s the trick for all such people out there. Type three dashes, underscores, pounds, equals, tildes or asterisks and hit enter.
Bad news is that this trick works only on MS Word and MS Outlook.
Conclusion
Horizontal lines are not just about section breaks. You may have you own requirements. For example, adding vivid lines for separating header and footer (if you do not like what comes by default). Any other use you can think of? Or any other thing you have been practicing? Let us know in the comments section.
Also See#msword
#Office Did You Know
Line Tool In Microsoft Word
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Microsoft Word
