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PROBLEM IS SOLVED!!!

And the solution was staring me in the face the whole time. Typing in a password (even the correct password, as so kindly verified by Ricky) generated an error message that said “Not a valid account name or password.” And because I had just set a password, that’s what I was focusing on. HOWEVER, when the password dialog box popped up, it showed the account name “anneb” (assigned to my Unix account here at work). But the password was tied to the name “Admin.” So it wasn’t really a password problem at all–it was the account name I was using.

EUREKA! I just changed the user name from anneb to Admin, put in the password, and I’m in.

So thank you, Ricky, for verifying my password for me. And Wendell, you are my hero for spending so much time explaining security issues to me; I promise to read those white papers so I won’t be making another bonehead mistake like this one. Francois, I also appreciate your input. You guys are the best.

Humble thanks to all of you.

There is no code in the template (that I know of, anyway). The only difference between the problem template and “Normal” is the additional styles and buttons. And “Normal” doesn’t seem to crash Word.

Thanks for the tip about Organizer. I’ll make another attempt at re-creating the template, using Organizer instead of format painter.

Wendell,
I didn’t use the security wizard.

Today’s issue of Woody’s Office Watch included a link to an advertiser specializing in recovering lost passwords. I downloaded the demo version of the software, which indicates that no database password was set.

Why do you think reinstalling Access might make the problem worse? I ask this because my IT department has hinted that they think I’ve got a bad Office install (I’ve also suffered a totally unrelated Word template problem), so I’m afraid reinstalling Office will be their first crack at “helping.”

Thanks.

Quick follow-up to M.M. Morrow’s excellent answer–more of an explanation, really. The “dots” are used to represent space characters when the formatting marks are shown. That’s why toggling off the Show/Hide button will make them disappear.

Howdy, Fred. Actually, I didn’t create a separate rectangle around the box (I am way too lazy to go through that much extra work). I made the border by selecting the box itself, then under “format autoshape” choosing “colors and lines” and selecting attributes for the line (color, thickness, etc.). That’s why I was so perplexed when the border came in before the text–they were both part of the same object.

It still strikes me as odd that the border of an object is considered an “attached shape” (rather than attribute of the object) when it comes to animation, but I suppose one has to expect that sort of logic with Microsoft products. And we do live in a Microsoft world!

Thanks again for the help.

Bottom line: I got my slide to look beautiful, and the boss liked it. Yaay!

And a pile-o-lashes to me, for not recognizing the (now obvious) error in the first place! Thanks again for the help.

Thanks, Fred! You put me on the path to finding the solution.

In the left box, I did *not* have “animate attached shape” checked, but it *was* checked for the right box. So I made sure it was checked for the left box, and EUREKA! The border now flies in with the text.

I guess it was a newbie error after all.

Anyway, the reason I wanted borders around the text is that each box displays text in three columns, and I wanted anyone viewing the presentation to be able to easily distinguish the two sets from each other. So I thought putting borders around each example would visually separate them, so it would actually *look* like two sets of three columns, rather than one set of six columns.

Thanks again!

Thanks for trying, Grant.

What perplexes me about this is that the left border is there *before* the text, but the right border comes in *with* the text. Same type of object, same formatting, same type of animation (only difference is the direction they fly in from), but different results.

I tried to attach the slide in question so you could actually see what I’m trying to describe, but apparently .ppt isn’t an acceptable file type for uploading.

At a job interview yesterday, the interviewer described a problem she has with the limitation on size of cells formatted for text. This morning, I found your elegantly simple solution to her problem, and emailed her to share the wealth.

I won’t find out for a least a couple of days whether I got the job, but you may very well have given me the edge over other candidates.

THANK YOU!!!!

Here’s another idea: Try using a smaller font (as opposed to a smaller font size). For example, using a given point size, Garamond is fairly large, but Times New Roman is much smaller (vertically as well as horizontally). And there’s always a “condensed” or “narrow” font (like Arial Narrow).

I can’t believe you’ve spent all this time and energy fretting about a VERY SHORT TABLE. Just print it out, open a new document, and RETYPE THE DARN THING. You could have done that in no time flat. And all the formatting would have been okay from the get-go.

Peter,
Thank you! That looks like it will do the trick. I really appreciate your help (jscher2000’s, too). You guys have saved me from reinventing an old wheel.

Thanks, Jefferson! As you can see in the post following yours, Peter Moran seems to have expanded on the filename routine. Between the two of you, I’m on the road.

Try right-clicking the text box, then choosing “format text box” from the pop-up. Under the “text box” tab, you can set the internal margins of the text box (in your case, you’ll want to work with the top and bottom margins to center your text vertically).

However, I’m not sure that using text boxes is the best way for you to create “buttons.” Perhaps someone else can supply a better solution for you.