So I have the picture near the bottom of the page, and right underneath it I want some text, so I use the insert text box option, but as I start drawing the box's boundaries, it made the picture move to the next page. WTF. This sucks so much, the only good thing that was about text box, is that you could place text whenever you want, without messing up the position of other objects in the page. I'm so mad.


P.S. Alright, so I kinda found a workaround, and it's to draw a text box somewhere in the open, right click on it, and make it appear in front of the text, that way you'd place it over any object you want, or very close to other objects without disturbing their positions. Why is it not on default?

Unfortunately its been like that since the beginning as far i can remember. But yeah you did find an easy fix. The same issue usually applies to pictures and other content.

I believe the idea is that if you placed the insertables behind or infront of text by default, it would cause issues for novice users who wouldnt be able to prevent content appearing over each other. So they rely on more experienced users to make the change.

It used to be default. They changed it because someone decided that "in line with text" was better. You can't please everyone.

Two years ago on his American Editor blog, Rich Adin wrote:

Of all the things that are wrong about Word, the text (and graphic) boxes are the absolute worst. Text boxes don’t stick in place; text boxes do not break over pages; if the text box is too big for the page or not big enough to display all of the text it holds, it gives no clue that there is hidden in-box text; text boxes obscure text and other text and graphic boxes — basically, text boxes are evil and not easy to get rid of. Need to box some text? Use a table cell. It works just as well and has none of the evil features of a text box.