How do I get horizontal lines to the left and right of a heading in Microsoft word?

In Word 2007 I want to put a heading in the center of a line with a horizontal line to the left and to the right of the text.

The line must not cross through the text. I have tried using autoshapes and lines - but then the lines move each time I press Enter or ← Backspace and I have to put them in place again manually.

At Borders and Shading there is an "Insert horizontal line" option, but this gives me a solid line from the left to the right of the page and I cannot insert text anywhere on it or in it.

The final product should look something like this:

------------------------- Heading -------------------------

5 Answers

Type "Heading" on the line where you need it.

View -> Check the "Ruler" mark.

In the top left corner of the document area (below the ribbon), there is a little square with funky signs that change if you keep clicking on them (1). The one that's displayed should be the "L" looking, when you hover your mouse over it, it says "Left Tab" (the one that's on the picture is the Right tab). Make sure it is displayed and click on the lower part of the ruler until you see the same shape show up on the ruler. Once you see it there, you can drag it wherever you need it. Find the tab marks on the left of the ruler (you drag them to adjust the left alignment). Make sure your "L" is on top of the bottom piece (2).

Click the corner with funky shapes once, your selection should change to the upside-down "T". Place your upside-down "T" on the lower part of the ruler somewhere in the middle (you can easily adjust it later, so an approximation would work just fine for now) (3).

Click the corner with funky shapes once more, you should see the mirrored "L", now click on the lower part of the ruler again, closer to the right border of the printable area. Once you have the mark there, drag it to the marker that designates the right side of the printable area (4).

Position your cursor before the beginning of your heading. Select "Strikethrough." Hit "Tab" key once. Move your cursor to the end of your heading. Select "Strikethrough". Hit "Tab" key once.

You can now adjust the middle of your heading by dragging the marker on the top of the ruler.

Here's a catch: if you start a new line, remove those markers from the ruler (click and hold your mouse on one of them, drag it down until the mark becomes gray, release your mouse and it will disappear), otherwise next time you hit the "Tab" key, your cursor will move to the middle of the page.

I hope I made it clear, it's hard to explain, but those little markers are a powerful alignment feature, and is very usable for tasks like yours.

Put spaces (or tabs) on either side of your word, then apply strikeout to them. Do not strikeout the whole line, just highlight the spaces on either side and apply strikeout to them separately. I'm not sure if word calls it strikeout or strike-through, but look for it in the font options.

I'm pretty sure this is what you want:

1. Use an underscore (_)
2. Increase the size of the font
3. Bold the font
4. Highlight the underscore and use superscript to lift the line up

Strikethrough won't work. Insert "---", and press enter. This will give you the line you're looking for. Insert a text box onto the middle of that line you just created and change the properties of the background of the text box to be an opaque white (to cover up the part of the line behind the words. If you center the text inside of the text box, you can adjust how much of the "line" you want to cover up by stretching the text box out on the sides.

I had the same problem with spaces AFTER the word not showing the strike-through line (Word 2003). A special character was suggested at the end of the line...a dash (em Dash). This worked like a charm, the strike-through showed up after the word and the line ended with a dash that was lined up with the strike-through line so all was great, right?. EXCEPT, the print preview showed that the dash was actually slightly above the strike-through line and looked terrible.

Final solution: Instead of a dash, use a period [.] instead. Since you don't want to see it, highlight it and make it the same color as the page [white in my case] and it becomes invisible. There may be a very slightly larger blank space where the period is, but it is only a pixel or two so I doubt anyone would notice.