Technique for Adding a Text Box to an Envelope

Anthony often has a need for an envelope that includes a text box under the return address. The text box contains the words "return receipt requested" all in caps, bold, and underlined. He's looking for a quick way to add the text box so that he doesn't have to spend as much time creating it every time he does an envelope.

There are a couple of different ways you can do this. First, you could simply create a Word template for your envelope. Do this by creating a regular envelope, making sure that everything is just the way you want it. (Don't forget your text box under the return address.) Instead of printing the envelope, use Save As to save it as a template. In the future you can create a new document based on this template, and you'll end up with an envelope you can modify to fit your current needs.

Another approach is to create the text box the way you want it, and then assign the text box to an AutoText entry. Follow these steps:

1. Create the text box as you want it to appear on your envelopes.
2. Make sure the text box is selected. (You'll see small black handles around the perimeter of the text box.)
3. Press Alt+F3. The Create AutoText dialog box appears.
4. Change the name in the dialog box to something like 'rreturn' or 'rreceipt'. Note that there are duplicate letters at the beginning of each of these names. That is so that the words used to trigger the AutoText feature are unique.
5. Click OK. You've now created your AutoText entry.

In order to use the new entry in the future, just type the keyword (the one you set up in step 4) and press F3. The keyword is replaced with the text box, which you can drag to wherever you want it.

There is also a good article at the Word MVP site on how to format envelopes for special needs. Pay particular attention to the section on incorporating special text:

http://wordmvp.com/FAQs/Formatting/EnvelopeFormat.htm

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (303) applies to Microsoft Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. You can find a version of this tip for the ribbon interface of Word (Word 2007 and later) here: Technique for Adding a Text Box to an Envelope.