OFF2000: Textured and Patterned Fills in Office Art Do Not Rotate as Expected

When you rotate an Office Art drawing object or AutoShape that contains a textured or patterned fill, the fill pattern remains in its original orientation and does not rotate as expected.

This behavior occurs because the patterned fills consist of tiled bitmaps that cannot be rotated in Microsoft Office programs.

The following workaround uses Microsoft Photo Editor, a program that is included with Microsoft Office 2000. This procedure works for any degree of rotation, but the results look best with 90-degree orientations. The tiling of the bitmap for a rotation other than 90 degrees is more visible.

Rotate the Drawing Object 90 Degrees

1. Start an Office program, such as Microsoft Word or Microsoft Excel. On the Drawing toolbar, click AutoShapes, and then select and draw a shape that is not a circle or a square.
2. On the Format menu, click Format AutoShape.
3. Click the Colors and Lines tab. Under Fill, click the Color list, and then click Fill Effects.
4. Click the Texture tab, scroll to the bottom of the Texture list, and then select the bottom-right texture, Medium Wood. Click OK twice.
   
   Note that the wood grain runs horizontally in the object.
5. To make the fill appear to rotate with the drawing shape, copy the object, and then start Photo Editor (click Start, point to Programs, and then click Microsoft Photo Editor).
6. On the Edit menu, click Paste as New Image.
   
   NOTE: The fill pattern is based on a square rather than the shape of the object that you copied.
7. On the Image menu, click Rotate, click Rotate Left, and then click OK.
   
   The wood grain pattern is now vertical.
8. Save this file as a bitmap (.bmp). To do this, on the File menu, click Save As, select Windows Bitmap (*.bmp) in the Save as type box, and then type the name that you want in the File Name box.
9. To apply the rotated fill (vertical wood grain) to the object, repeat steps 2 and 3 to access the Fill Effects dialog box.
10. On the Textures tab of the Fill Effects dialog box, click Other Texture, locate the .bmp file that you saved in Photo Editor, and then apply this rotated fill to the object.

Rotate the Fill at an Angle Other than 90 Degrees

Follow steps 1 through 6 in the "Rotate the Drawing Object 90 Degrees" section to create, copy, and paste the drawing object. To rotate the fill at an angle other than 90 degrees, follow these steps:

1. On the Image menu, click Rotate, select the angle of rotation that you want, and then click OK.
   
   The pattern image appears as a rotated textured square within a solid square.
2. Using the Select tool on the Photo Editor toolbar, click and drag an area to select only the rotated pattern. With that area selected, click Copy on the Edit menu, and then click Paste as New Image.
3. Save this as a new file, and then apply the rotated textured fill to the object.

For more information about drawing shapes, click Microsoft Help on the Help menu, type change the shape of a curve or freeform drawing object in the Office Assistant or the Answer Wizard, and then click Search to view the topic.