Laying out your design in Publisher often involves manipulating the size and position of text and objects. It's easy and fun to change the layout by selecting and dragging your design elements until you hit upon the right combination. There are times, however, when you want to fine-tune the placement of your text and objects with mathematical precision.

The Measurements toolbar was designed to eliminate the hit-and-miss approach to perfect text and object placement. Publisher 2000 collected the commonly used layout tools into a single toolbar. The Measurements toolbar makes it easy to work in small increments. It tracks the insertion point of the text frame or object and shows the size, position, or angle of rotation of the selected item.

Changing and Applying Settings

The controls available in the Measurements toolbar vary depending on whether you manipulate text or objects.

Controlling text  When you click a text frame, all the controls become available. Adjust your text by entering a precise number in the toolbar control or by nudging the UP ARROW or DOWN ARROW keys.

Any value you enter is applied to the text when you use the TAB key to move to another field on the toolbar, or if you press ENTER. Press ESC to cancel a change you made to a field.

Controlling objects  When you click an object or picture frame, only certain controls are available on the Measurements toolbar. For example, character formatting and line spacing are unavailable because the text controls no longer apply. If you rotate an object, the height and width controls are unavailable until the rotation has been completed.

Understanding the Controls

The table below explains the controls on the toolbar.

Control	Action to the object or text
	X control moves objects horizontally
	Y control moves objects vertically
	Width control increases or decreases the width of objects
	Height control increases or decreases the height of objects
	Rotation control rotates the object to a precise degree
	Tracking control (adjusts the spacing between two or more characters
	Horizontal scaling control adjusts the character width
	Kerning control adjusts the spacing between specific character pairs
	Line space control adjusts spacing between lines of text

The X and Y controls use the ruler origin as their zero point. By default, this point is the upper-left corner of the page. You can manually reposition the zero point to change the reference point.

Below is an example of manipulating an object using the toolbar.

Watch what happens after you manipulate the arrow using the Measurement toolbar controls	The arrow is moved to the right, increased in size, and rotated 180 degrees. The values changed in the X, width, height, and rotation angle controls. The graphic did not move vertically, so the Y control didn't change.

Accessing the Toolbar

Can't wait to try it? On the View menu, point to Toolbars, and then click Measurements. The Measurements toolbar appears as a floating toolbar. You cannot dock this particular toolbar but you can move it to any position on your screen.

You can also access the toolbar by double-clicking the Object Position and Object Size boxes in the lower-right corner of the Publisher status bar.