I've tried "behind text," "in front of text," et cetera, but have ended up with a two-page document with around 50 text boxes that usually stay wherever I drag and drop them...but sometimes collapse the document to one page, with one page of text boxes on top of the other page's, if I try to move or delete them. When this happens, sometimes reformatting them helps, but sometimes it doesn't. Another problem, and possible hint at the mysterious-to-me root of my troubles, is that every time I try to add pages to this document the pages end up ABOVE my last page, not beneath, no matter what I do. Thank you very, very much for any help you can offer! (I'm a writer, trying to do the electronic equivalent of spreading index cards with different scenes written out on them over the dining room table...and need to be able to repeatedly re-position them.)

Hi Holly,

The basic issue with your textboxes are that they'll be anchored to a paragraph. By default, they'll move with that paragraph (depending on your Word configurations, you may see an anchor next to the relevant paragraph when you click on one of the textboxes). So, if you insert a paragraph break before the paragraph the textboxes are anchored to, the textboxes will move down the page. Similarly, if you insert a page break before the paragraph the textboxes are anchored to, the textboxes will move to the next page.

This can become problematic when they're anchored to the last paragraph in the document. A workaround is to insert a paragraph break before the paragraph the textboxes are anchored to, then cut the one they're anchored to and paste it before the newly-inserted one. You can then insert the page break before what is now the last paragraph break.

Conversely, if you delete content before the paragraph break the textboxes are anchored to, they'll move up the page and, ultimately, to the preceding page.

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