Creating “margin icons” in MS Word, ideally as part of a style

Question

One might have seen, in many textbooks, certain paragraphs are highlighted with an "Important" icon next to them, or a "Warning!".

I would like to achieve a similar thing for a document I am writing. I have managed to achieve something of what I need by creating a custom bullet with the icons and enlarging the bullet to be the right size. The problem is that using this method I can't get the associated paragraph to start at the top. It will always start at the bottom right of the bullet.

Any suggestions?

Answer 1

I would personally insert a textbox, then type the paragraph text.

After that you would have the opportunity to customize the textbox (with the whole paragraph inside) to apply different background/border styles/colors.

Some more info on Office.com:

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/infopath-help/insert-a-rich-text-box-HP010080917.aspx?CTT=1#BM1

Answer 2

1. Insert continous break before and after the paragraph you want to mark with a picture on the margin: Page Layout->Breaks->Continous.
2. While the cursor is in that paragraph drag the margin band on the ruler to the left.
3. Drag the identation controls on the ruler to the right in order to aligh the text back with other paragraphs.
4. Paste a picture to the left of the text. Make sure the picture's Text Wrapping mode is set to "Tight" (Right-click->Text Wrapping->Tight).