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I have a Microsoft® Word 2016 MSO (16.0.8528.2126) 64-bit document which looks, in part, like this:

picture of rectangles within table

To be clear, it is a table which contains shapes (squares, to be specific). It is designed for filling out by hand; users are to check the boxes under certain conditions.

How can I align the corners of the squares with the corners of the table cells? As you can see from the graphic, they are more-or-less aligned, but aligning all 28 of them by hand would be painstaking and error-prone and just seems like a waste of time.

I am not the type to ask questions, in general; I would just try to see if I could figure it out, and then, if not, do it manually. However, the (extraordinarily useful) Stack Exchange sites seem to encourage people to ask questions in order to permit them to do other things which I would like to be able to do (i.e., add comments to answers in order to add potentially useful additional information) so here you are.

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I prefer another way to do that using table or shapes, not together.

Using Shapes

If you interested in shapes, first of all create a canvas.

Then go through Format > Align drop down > Grid settings... and check "snap objects to other objects".

Now build your table using some rectangles. This is so interesting to me!

Note that you can simply snap rectangles together!

For that checkbox square, create a square and make some copies and place them where you wish.

Of course you can add text to these rectangles via right-clicking on shapes.

Using Table

If interested in table, you can create a table that has a doubled number of rows and columns.

Then set height of each row half of your desired height for rows.

For each odd column set your desired width for columns.

For each even column set its width to some smaller value for example equal to rows height so you will get a squared checkbox at the end.

Now hide some inside borders so that you get a cell with square at top-right. (this cell actually is consist of 4 cells that we hide some borders)


Update

Using Symbols

You may also use this way if there's no other text to be placed on cells, for example is intended for filling by hand. Otherwise you may face with some difficulties for best aligning text in cells.

We can put a square symbol from Word Symbols and align it at top right of cell.

then set cell margins at the same values, say 0 or 0.1. It gives it a more beautiful appearance. enter image description here

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  • Thank you very much. I suspect that one of these approaches (specifically, the latter) would be the best way to approach this; this is a form I inherited. I had indeed thought of that approach but it's a pain in a different way...the checkboxes should only be about 1/3 of the box, so I need 3x the rows and 3x the columns. Nevertheless, unless someone has another idea, your feedback is helpful to me in deciding that this is going to be easier than mixing and matching shapes and tables. I'll mark this as the answer unless I hear some other idea for a clever way to do this with mix&match.
    – ludinom
    Oct 25, 2017 at 20:30
  • This was the approach I took. I created the table with three times the number of rows and columns I needed, and then put a border around each block of nine cells, and also a border around the upper-right cell. Actually I did this once to create one block of nine cells with the appropriate borders, copied it, and then pasted it six times to make a row, and then copied the row and pasted it three more times. Thanks again for pointing me in a more sensible direction.
    – ludinom
    Oct 26, 2017 at 4:34
  • You're welcome! I'm updated answer with another way, but not exactly what you asked for.
    – iman
    Oct 26, 2017 at 9:03
  • TY again. Using the square symbol is an idea that hadn't occurred to me and is an interesting one. ☐ BTW, I've upvoted, but my upvotes are not displayed because I lack the credibility for my upvotes to be relevant for others; I've marked your response as the answer.
    – ludinom
    Oct 26, 2017 at 15:58
  • I've updated my standard Autohotkey file with the following line: ::;box::☐ ; checkbox: Unicode Character 'BALLOT BOX' (U+2610) This hotstring allows me to type ;box and then Autohotkey inserts a checkbox character ☐. Just FYI in case it's of use to you.
    – ludinom
    Oct 26, 2017 at 16:06

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