I'm using: Word 2010 Spanish
Platform: Windows XP SP3

I want to format my document with a repeating table (one table per page) that contains fixed data, e.g. document title, no. of pages, as if I were working on a preprinted form.

(Note: The commands below are translated from the Spanish, the actual names may be slightly different in the English version of Word 2010.)

Thus I:
1. Click on the Insert tab
2. Click on Header
3. Click on Edit header
4. Click on Textbox
5. Draw a textbox that is nearly as wide and high as the page
6. Remove the border of the textbox
7. Insert a 3-row table, edit the upper and lower rows with the texts I want
8. Close the header


9. Write the text of the main section of the document, applying a page margin that makes this text appear on the middle row.

On screen it looks neat, but when I want to print out the document the table in the background is empty. None of the texts I typed in the table appear.

What I have done wrong?

Thanks for any assistance.

Michael

Hi Michael,

Why are you using a textbox? You should be able to insert the table directly into the header.

__________________
Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]

Hello Paul,

good question ... The reason is that I want the table to go beyond the margins of the page. If I put the table into a text box, then I can "override" the page margins restriction by making a wider text box.

I could go the other way round: simply insert a table into the header and then apply a Normal style on the text in the text layer, that sets narrower margins to it, but I found that my first solution was easier.

Best,

Michael

Hi Michael,

Table margins can extend beyond the page margins if you want them to - even beyond the page edges.

__________________
Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]

Hello again, Paul.

I've tried placing a table directly in the header and using the "text flow" settings for the table, so that it goes beyond the space that seems to be available in the header and covers the entire page. The problem is then that the text in the text layer is being "pushed away". I would like to use this table as a kind of watermark.
As a translator I'm being confronted quite often with this kind of layout that looks like a preprinted form that is filled out: a repeating table with three rows (header, central row for the "fill-out text", and a footer).
With Word 2003 I used this trick with the table in a text box in the header quite often, and it worked, whereas I'm having lots of problems with it in Word 2010.

Hi Michael,

OK, if I knew that, I wouldn't have suggested inserting the tables directly. You can probably fix the problem by going to File|Options|Display and checking the 'print drawings created in Word' option.

__________________
Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]

Thanks for the quick replies. I will try your suggestion.

Best,

Michael