Why Word fights you
Publisher puts things at a fixed spot on a page. Word starts from a stream of text and moves everything else to fit around it, so a picture "anchored" to a paragraph moves when that paragraph moves. Most of the frustration goes away once every box and picture is pinned to the page instead of to the text.
1. Use text boxes, and pin them
- Insert > Text Box > Draw Text Box, and draw it where the story goes, just like a Publisher frame.
- With the box selected, open Layout Options (the small icon at its top right) and choose Fix position on page.
- Do the same for every picture: Picture Format > Wrap Text > Square, then Wrap Text > Fix Position on Page.
Now typing above a box no longer pushes it down the page.
2. Link text boxes so a story continues
Publisher's "continued on page 4" works in Word too. Draw the second text box, click the first one, then Shape Format > Create Link and click the empty box. Text that overflows the first box flows into the second, on the same page or a later one. The second box has to be empty when you link it.
3. Columns: one of two ways
- Simple pages: Layout > Columns gives the whole page (or a section) two or three columns. Use Layout > Breaks > Continuous to change the number of columns partway down a page, for a full-width headline above three columns.
- Designed pages: one linked text box per column gives you Publisher-style control over each column's height and position.
4. Wrap text around pictures
Select the picture, Picture Format > Wrap Text > Square or Tight, and the page's text flows around it, which PowerPoint can't do. One catch: text inside a text box doesn't wrap around a picture laid over it. For a story that wraps around a photo, put that story in the main text (with Layout > Columns) rather than in a text box.
5. Keep the clutter manageable
- Home > Select > Selection Pane lists every box and picture on the page. Click one to select it even when it's hidden behind another, and use the eye icon to hide it while you work.
- View > Gridlines helps line things up.
- Hold Shift, click several items, then right-click > Group to move a picture and its caption together.
6. Save it as a template once it works
When an issue looks right, delete the stories but keep the boxes, masthead and page furniture, then File > Save As > Word Template (.dotx). Each new issue starts from File > New > Personal. That's the Word version of the old trick of saving last month's .pub as next month's and hollowing it out.
If Word is still a struggle
Word can do it, but it was never a layout program, so a 16-page magazine is hard work in it. Two other routes keep your old design:
- PowerPoint works the way Publisher did: boxes placed on a page, nothing moving when you type. Set the slide size to your page size and use one slide per page.
- Affinity (now free) is a full layout app, closer to Publisher than Word is, with linked text frames and master pages.
Either way, you don't have to rebuild the old issues. My converter turns a .pub file into a PowerPoint file, an Affinity/InDesign file and a Word file, with every text box and picture where it was, so last year's issue becomes this year's template. Every page is previewed free before you pay $12.