canvas available in ms word 2016 (mac version)?
Andrew Henderson 
For drawing in an MS Word for Mac 2016 document, a canvas is apparently no longer necessary. Is it nevertheless available in any way? I liked them; they helped keep things contained.
UPDATE: I am running on OS X. Have been informed that it is rather different from Word on Windows machines.
34 Answers
On Windows Word 2016, the option is called New Canvas Drawing and is at the bottom of Insert tab->Illustrations group->Shapes dropdown.
There is no such option on Mac Word 2016 (or 2011 for that matter). Word VBA on Mac does not currently have the AddCanvas command that the Windows version has, either, so it does not look as if you can create a macro to add one. (If you try to use the command to insert a shape of type msoCanvas, you get something that looks like a No Entry road sign, and it does not work like a canvas).
Because the canvas feature is not provided on Mac, it is difficult to recommend using them, as they may not actually be supported.
However, if you create a document on Windows Word and insert a canvas, then open that in Mac Word 2016 (or 2011), you get a Canvas that appears to work in a similar way on Mac. So if you have such a document, you could
- make a copy
- open it in Mac Word
- remove everything from the canvas and size/format it the way you want
- select the canvas and save it as an autotext
Then use the autotext feature to insert the canvas.
If you do not have such a document, you can use the XML I have provided below. To do that,
- Select all the XML and copy it to the clipboard (e.g. cmd-C on Mac)
- Open TextEdit and use File->New to create a blank document
- Paste the XML into that
- Use File->Save to save the document. I suggest that you select "Unicode UTF-8" in the "Plain text encoding" dropdown, uncheck "Hide Extension", and call the document canvas.xml. Make sure that TextEdit does not change the name (e.g. to canvas.txt or canvas.xml.txt)
- Use File->Close to close the document
You should then be able to open canvas.xml in Word. The canvas probably won't be visible until you click on it (it's at the top left of the document in the main text area).
Then save the canvas as an autotext, as suggested earlier.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" standalone="yes"?>
<?mso-application progid="Word.Document"?>
<pkg:package xmlns:pkg=""> <pkg:part pkg:name="/_rels/.rels" pkg:contentType="application/vnd.openxmlformats-package.relationships+xml" pkg:padding="512"> <pkg:xmlData> <Relationships xmlns=""> <Relationship Type="" Target="word/document.xml" /> </Relationships> </pkg:xmlData> </pkg:part> <pkg:part pkg:name="/word/_rels/document.xml.rels" pkg:contentType="application/vnd.openxmlformats-package.relationships+xml" pkg:padding="256"> <pkg:xmlData> <Relationships xmlns=""> <Relationship Type="" Target="settings.xml" /> </Relationships> </pkg:xmlData> </pkg:part> <pkg:part pkg:name="/word/document.xml" pkg:contentType="application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document.main+xml"> <pkg:xmlData> <w:document xmlns:a="" xmlns:w="" xmlns:wp="" xmlns:wpc=""> <w:body> <w:p> <w:r> <w:drawing> <wp:anchor distT="0" distB="0" distL="0" distR="0" simplePos="0" relativeHeight="0" behindDoc="0" locked="0" layoutInCell="1"
allowOverlap="1"> <wp:simplePos x="0" y="0" /> <wp:positionH relativeFrom="column"> <wp:posOffset>0</wp:posOffset> </wp:positionH> <wp:positionV relativeFrom="paragraph"> <wp:posOffset>0</wp:posOffset> </wp:positionV> <wp:extent cx="4000000" cy="3000000" /> <wp:wrapNone /> <wp:docPr name="Canvas 1" /> <a:graphic> <a:graphicData uri=""> <wpc:wpc> <wpc:bg /> <wpc:whole /> </wpc:wpc> </a:graphicData> </a:graphic> </wp:anchor> </w:drawing> </w:r> </w:p> </w:body> </w:document> </pkg:xmlData> </pkg:part> <pkg:part pkg:name="/word/settings.xml" pkg:contentType="application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.settings+xml"> <pkg:xmlData> <w:settings xmlns:w=""> <w:compat> <w:compatSetting w:name="compatibilityMode" w:uri="" w:val="15" /> </w:compat> </w:settings> </pkg:xmlData> </pkg:part>
</pkg:package>I found a way to insert canvas like Microsoft Word (Windows version) using MAC by going to:
- Open PREFERENCES
- Open RIBBON & TOOLBAR
- Dropdown menu for Command to ALL
- Click ADD (+) in Customise ribbon (create new tab)
- Select INSERT DRAWING from command ALL to the new tab
On Mac You can insert a shape staright in word and then use tab "Shape Format" --> Arrange --> position --> "in line with text"
will give you the same effect as the canvas.
0The following should help:
Place the cursor roughly where you want the drawing canvas to be.
Go to the Insert tab.
Click the Shapes button and choose New Drawing Canvas.
You can find New Drawing Canvas at the bottom of the Shapes drop-down list.
Source: How to Work with the Drawing Canvas in Word 2016 for Windows
Please Note:
This answer was written towards Office 2016 on Windows. When I originally submitted this answer, the question made no mention of OS X, so I wrote it towards the only version of Office I knew. I am keeping this answer, since everyone else still find use out of it, but if people don't find it helpful I will just delete it.
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