[comp.sys.mac.apps] * Word cells: possible to shade?

gaines@mars.njit.edu (Starman) (04/16/91)

Hi,
	Using Word 4.0D, is it possible to shade cells? I know you can
change the text color and border line types, but the docs say nothing
about shading the cells themselves. Any help? Please leave E-mail.

===========================================================================
"They can fly rings around the moon,	      |		 Mike
but we're years ahead of them on the highway" |	  gaines@mars.njit.edu
===========================================================================
			System 7 on an 800K floppy? HA!
===========================================================================

bytebug@dhw68k.cts.com (Roger L. Long) (04/21/91)

In article <1991Apr15.195647.15530@njitgw.njit.edu> Mike writes:
|	Using Word 4.0D, is it possible to shade cells? I know you can
|change the text color and border line types, but the docs say nothing
|about shading the cells themselves. Any help? Please leave E-mail.

If you're willing to write PostScript, I believe you could insert text into 
the cell and change it to PostScript style.  I remember reading about some
macros (for lack of a better word) that allowed to to figure the clippath
of a cell, so I'd suspect that it would be fairly easy to fill a cell with
shading of some sort, and then add some text, if you wish.

Having used PostScript from Word in the past, let me warn you that it's not
pretty, in that what you see on the screen can begin to look more like
troff than WYSIWYG.  If you have more specific questions, feel free to send
me mail.
-- 
	Roger L. Long
	bytebug@dhw68k.cts.com

1k1mgm@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu (Christopher Gunn) (04/25/91)

In article <1991Apr21.133421.23593@dhw68k.cts.com>, bytebug@dhw68k.cts.com (Roger L. Long) writes:
> In article <1991Apr15.195647.15530@njitgw.njit.edu> Mike writes:
> |	Using Word 4.0D, is it possible to shade cells? I know you can
> |change the text color and border line types, but the docs say nothing
> |about shading the cells themselves. Any help? Please leave E-mail.

Use 'Copy as Picture' to get cell on clipboard, paste into MacDraw or
some such, apply shaded background, cut, get back into Word, paste, and
then tinker around *endlessly* with negative line spacing numbers
and/or absolute positioning in order to get it to come out right.
It's doable, but a royal pain in the ass.  The one good thing is
that Word does come pretty close to clipping tone block to the
defined cell boundaries right and bottom, so you don't have to be very
precise about those from inside MacDraw or whatever.

Christopher Gunn	Molecular Graphics and Modeling Lab
SPAN--KUPHSX::GUNN	Department of Medicinal Chemistry, Malott Hall
913-864-4428 or -4495	University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS  66045

awessels@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Allen Wessels) (04/25/91)

In article <1991Apr24.155921.29985@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu> 1k1mgm@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu (Christopher Gunn) writes:

>Use 'Copy as Picture' to get cell on clipboard, paste into MacDraw or
>some such, apply shaded background, cut, get back into Word, paste, and
>then tinker around *endlessly* with negative line spacing numbers
>and/or absolute positioning in order to get it to come out right.
>It's doable, but a royal pain in the ass.  The one good thing is
>that Word does come pretty close to clipping tone block to the
>defined cell boundaries right and bottom, so you don't have to be very
>precise about those from inside MacDraw or whatever.

Another way to shade a cell would be to create a grey box and paste it into
the cell.  Given that Word treats a graphic as if it were a character, you can
use the math formatting commands to overlay text on the graphic, i.e.
/O({graphic}, text from cell).  I've used this technique to create mail merged
name tags with graphics in the name tag.  This will take almost as much tweaking
as useing the position command, though.

reed@kroy.kroy.com (Sherry Reed) (04/26/91)

Yes, it is possible to shade a cell in Word 4.0D.  I found this tip in
the May 1991 issue of MacWorld (pg. 216).  Here is a short summary.

Type the following PostScript commands as a separate one-line
paragraph at the beginning of the cell.

 .cell. .75 setgray wp$box fill

Be sure to press Return at the end of the line.  Select the whole line
and apply the PostScript style to the line.  You can do that by
holding the Shift Key and choosing All Styles from the Format Menu and
double clicking PostScript in the dialog box that appears.

The tip goes on to tell you how to shade an entire row.  Also, be sure
that the Print Hidden Text option is not selected.  MacWorld gives
credit to this tip to Alison Moore-Smith of Orem, Utah, and I do too.

Regards,
S. Reed

reed@kroy.com (Sherry Reed) (04/29/91)

Yes, it is possible to shade a cell in Word 4.0D.  I found this tip in
the May 1991 issue of MacWorld (pg. 216).  Here is a short summary.

Type the following PostScript commands as a separate one-line
paragraph at the beginning of the cell.

 .cell. .75 setgray wp$box fill

Be sure to press Return at the end of the line.  Select the whole line
and apply the PostScript style to the line.  You can do that by
holding the Shift Key and choosing All Styles from the Format Menu and
double clicking PostScript in the dialog box that appears.

The tip goes on to tell you how to shade an entire row.  (By replacing
"cell" with the word "row") Also, be sure that the Print Hidden Text
option is not selected.  MacWorld gives credit to this tip to Alison
Moore-Smith of Orem, Utah, and I do too.

Regards,
S. Reed

aleskine@cs.hut.fi (Arto Leskinen) (05/01/91)

If I remember right there are ready samples or clossaryitems for doing gray
filled cells with postscript. It does not look nice in the screen if you don't
hide hidden text from screen. Takes about fifteen minutes to do that. You
better look what comes in postscript clossary folder. I tried it once
so if you can not find a solution, mail and I try it.
aleskine@sauna.hut.fi