Merge Certificate – Change Text Direction
This is an unusual request—to be able to merge volunteers’ names and the date onto preprinted certificates to fit on the blank lines.
With an existing certificate paper that is a landscape format but it fits into the printer in portrait orientation, you will have to change the text direction in your template. Start with a sample letter. Open for editing in work. File | Save As … e.g., certificate.doc. Close it.
Back in Word Letters and Envelopes Add that into your template list. Click the Add button, browse to the file, and give it a descriptive name.
Select the new template of the list and open for editing in Word. Here’s one way you can manipulate text direction in Word 2003.
- Delete everything except the date and the volunteer’s name <<FirstLast>>.
- Highlight those two merge fields.
- Insert menu | Text Box.
Format menu | Text Direction | click pic of text running from bottom to top [bottom left]. OK.
Point to a corner of the text box and move the text box to the place on the page that coincides with the lines on the certificate. Then enlarge the box and tweak the placement of the two merge fields and fonts until you get what you want through trial and error. Or do the same maneuver in two operations to put the date and the name merge field in two different places.
This time use Save [not Save As].
You can check the location of the text by printing a sample and holding it up to the light on top of the certificate paper. Or you can measure and place the text more scientifically with Word’s rulers. Let us know if this helps you to figure out how to get your merge.