Self-adjusting/linked content Text Boxes in Word?

Im running Word 2016, and I was wondering if there is any way to make a Text Box that gets bigger or smaller based on its contents, as in "The Individual known as <Text Box With Persons Name Here> living at... " so if the new name was longer than the old one, the text box would get longer accordingly, but also move the 'living at...' making the document still look seamless

And im also wondering if you can have multiple Text Boxes that are sort of liked, so if you write something in one, it appears in all the others, cause I would need about 3 more <Text Box With Persons Name Here>. [I know this can be done in Adobe Reader but can it be done in Word?]

Or is my only chance using the old Find and Replace and hope the persons name was writing correctly everywhere?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Extending text boxes: I had no idea, so gave it a go: it seems that if you set the box to autofit: rt-click>Format shape>text box, then setting {autofit} on and {wrap text} off appears to work.

I have wondered about linked text boxes in Powerpoint for some time, but never bothered to work out if it were possible. But I have had a go in Word (in my case 2010), and there is a rather awkward way: with the cursor on a blank space, start by creating a caption (Refs>Insert caption):

I don't think it matters what sort of caption (figure, table etc), so I picked figure - but excluded the 'label' of 'figure', so all I see is a '1'. Then add some text (in my case xxx). Now this may seem bizarre, because it is a caption to nothing (or maybe the blank space that preceded it, I am not sure). You then end up with '1xxxx' appearing on the page. I added a line with 'space' to separate it from the next bit:

Now create a cross-reference to this caption:

and the text will appear again:


Now this is the fun (?) part: edit the caption (in blue) and remove the unwanted figure number - you can tweak the text (my 'xxxx', but don't work from the RHS or it appears you are working outside the caption:

(note the longer text box, while I was at it). But the cross-reference is not changed - to update it, select it and press F9:


Voila! You can update all references by selecting the whiole document (CTRL-A) and hitting F9. You can put the cross-reference inside a text box, but then it becomes a bit fussy about updating, and doesn't work with the 'all-at-once' method.

hth, Martin (this has been fun! - now to try Powerpoint...).

ReallyFrustratd said:

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

... if not acknowledged?

mngerhold said:

... if not acknowledged?

many thanks, any way to make the outlines not show up when printing?

ReallyFrustratd said:

many thanks, any way to make the outlines not show up when printing?

Simply rt-click, format shape > line colour > no line
(affects screen vew and print - don't know of a way to have line on screen but not on print.

mngerhold said:

Simply rt-click, format shape > line colour > no line
(affects screen vew and print - don't know of a way to have line on screen but not on print.

many thanks!