Home Made Stamp Album Pages

I would like to make stamp album pages using my 2003 word program.

Is there away to make adjustable (in millimeters) boxes that are moveable on the page?

And then still be able to type above or below that box.

You can try inserting a text box and not write anything inside it. I believe you can adjust the size of the box (in inches I think) and change the border (color, thickness, style, etc.). You'll have to experiment.

Good luck, Robert

I make album pages with Word 2010. There isn't much difference in functionality between Word 2003 and later versions. So I would be confident that you can do it.

Use Insert/shape to place a box on the page. With drawing tools you can adjust the size (it does millimeters), fill and just about anything else you want.
For text above or below, insert text boxes (you can size them too) and type away.

The image box and text boxes can be aligned and grouped and moved wherever you want. Sometimes viewing gridlines on the page can make alignment easier.

Word 2010 uses a "ribbon" and 2003 doesn't so I can't be too specific about where these functions are located. ( I can't remember! LOL)

Play around with it for a while and I think you will be amazed what you can do.

Dan

danstamps54: Sounds like what I want but I am not that experienced with all of the word functions.

Is there step by steps instructions on how to do this?

If you have MS Word, more than likely you have Excel, too. I find it a lot simpler to create album pages in Excel because it's much easier to adjust table sizes (widths, heights, etc.) in order to accommodate specific dimensions of various stamps.

Timm,

I did a quick Google search for "Microsoft Word 2003 tutorial" and came up with some hits for free sites.

I briefly glanced at http://www.gcflearnfree.org/word2003. I can't vouch for it but it seems to be along the lines you want.

My point is, there is free help out there that will get you started. (The Word program help works too!)

I don't know how complex you want your pages to be and, unfortunately, I haven't used Word 2003 in a LONG time. Word 2010 is structured a little differently so my instructions from 2010 wouldn't be much help.

Word is a pretty powerful program and will probably get you what you want. It isn't, however, as intuitive as some other programs e.g. Publisher, for drawings and object making because it is geared more toward word processing.

After little hands-on experimentation, you can make templates and crank out a page in no time.

Good Luck!
Dan

Thank you for the informations.

I guess what I am looking for is "Stamp Album Pages for Dummies!"

Timm, if you're not wedded to Word, give LibreOffice Draw http://www.libreoffice.org/features/draw/ You can easily set the default units to millimeters and add text anywhere you want. You can also print from it and export to PDF to share with others. Best of all, it's free and you can just download it as part of the libre office suite.

I use word for my pages, easy to set box line style and size. With 2003, select the frame, right click and choose "format auto shape" This allows you to size, select line style and width, text wrapping and whatever you need. I find it very easy to use.

Stampcoder: Thank you, I will look into it.

Russ. I tried what you said but haven't got it to work yet.

I guess I still need those "For Dummies" instructions.

Right click in the top toolbar and select "Drawing" to add the drawing toolbar (it will appear at the bottom)

Click the "Rectangle" icon or select "Rectangle" from "AutoShape" – "Basic Shapes"

If the "Create Your Drawing Here: box appears press "escape key"

Hold left mouse button down and drag a box, release left key

Select the box and move the mouse so that it has the resize arrow (diagonal double headed arrow) in one corner of the box and then right click

Left click "Format AutoShape" and window will(should) open.

Russ, Thank you, your instructions worked.

Is there any way to changes the inches into millimeters

Follow the steps given below to change the measurement units in word 2003

Click on Tools ->Options->General tab->Measurement Units drop-down menu toward the bottom of the "Options" dialog box.

You can choose from "Inches," "Centimeters," "Millimeters," "Points" or "Picas from the Measurement Units" drop-down menu.

You will find that you will need to adjust the size according to the type and thickness of lines used and also for your printer. I have created a template of standard sizes for the mounts that I use that leaves the spacing between the mount and the frame lines. For standard mounts I simply copy and paste sometimes on non standard I might have to resize to get the desired spacing.

Russ: Thank you for the information. I've been tinkering with it and it seems to work.

I am having problems aligning the boxes in a straight row. I also noticed that it take more than a simple delete to remove a box. I am probably doing that wrong too; but with some practice, I should be able to figure it out.

To delete the box just select it so that it has the little circles in the corners then hit delete. To align the boxes you can use the line tool in the drawing toolbar and then delete the line when you are done.

You can also easily align a grid using the table function and copying the boxes into the table cells, When you are done simply highlight the entire table, right click, select borders and shading, click none for border and the table border, horizontal and vertical lines will not show in printing.

Best thing is to experiment with the features and find what works well for you and gives the page the appearance you like. You can also do page bordders, title headers and footers if you like. As a tip when you get the page titles and/or ders the way you like them save them as a template for your new pages.

Excellent, once you get the hang of things it really isn't too difficult.

Thank you.