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I'm working on a document where I want to have particular words point to other words using an arrow shape (e.g. Dinosaur --> Chicken). Imagine --> as the arrow shape. However, as I work in the document and add sentences it pushes the text down but not the shape with it, throwing everything out of order. Is there a way I can link the arrow with a word so it follows it everywhere?

I previously had a way to quick fix "-->" to make an arrow that stayed in line with the text, but forgot how to do that. Any help would be great.

Floating shapes can only be attached to a particular page or particular paragraph, not a word or line.

Is there a way I can link the arrow with a word so it follows it everywhere?

I previously had a way to quick fix "-->" to make an arrow that stayed in line with the text, but forgot how to do that.

I think using an inline image is the best way to accomplish this. I was going to suggest you use NWP's shape tools to create your arrow and then convert it to an image by setting its placement to "inline with text", which would convert it as necessary, but there is a problem with this.

I assume your arrow is perfectly flat/horizontal, which means it gets converted to a zero-height image, clipping the display. You can workaround this by first drawing a shape canvas and then placing the arrow inside that, but this is a bit of pain. I'll file a bug on this. Also, once you've converted the arrow to an image you may need to fiddle with its baseline so it lines up nicely with your text.

So, everything considered, if you don't mind an arrow with a more modest appearance, I might suggest you use a Unicode arrow symbol. You can insert one using the menu Insert > Special Character > Misc. That's just a regular character which you can format like normal text, eg: change the color, font size, shadow, etc.

I'm attaching an example file that shows the results for both strategies.

Further to Martin’s comments, if you’re happy with a unicode arrow, you could create a “quickfix” to convert --> (two hyphens and greater-than) into the arrow of your choice …

Mark