Hi Ed - I too have been experimenting hard this afternoon. So far I cannot
reproduce the effect on documents created in the UI using Publisher VBA.

My application has 3 levels of "text boxes" the topmost one (level 1) is
chained over a number of pages. Level 2 is inline to that and starts as one
box but is duplicated many times by code. When the duplication is finished
the original is deleted.

Within level 2 is a level 3 box, this is duplicated many times by code
within each level 2 as the level 2 duplication continues. Again the original
is deleted once it has been duplicated. (Think property (house), with any
number of floors with any number of rooms within each floor).

Within each level there is fixed and variable text and an arbitrary number
of empty picture frames and tables. As the duplication of the original boxes
continues these are filled in appropriately by code. Once all the boxes are
populated I adjust the height of the level 2 and 3 boxes to accommodate the
text and other contained objects, starting from the inside out. I seem to be
getting this getheight error on the items within level 3 but maybe at other
levels too.

I will work on simplifying and extracting the code for doing all this so it
can be seen to fail in a simple document.

Oh, and perhaps importantly, it is all being driven through automation from
a standalone VB6 application. (Not possible to change that either)

Having written all the above, I have a sneaky suspicion, all of a sudden,
that it is to do with a text box that is not visible because it has
"overflowed" - into its own overflow area rather than a linked box. When this
happens it may be that the "top" of a contained object is truly undefined if
it itself is oveflowed off the invisible text box, IYSWIM.

But anyway - this whole "gettop" problem is a side issue to kludge around
the real problem. My real problem is that the overflow indicator is not set
properly if a textrame within a text box contains an inline shape,
right-aligned, deeper than the text in the box - see posting one after this
thread. You can prove that one all in the UI - no coding needed. If that
worked Ok I wouldn't have to be computing the maximum depth of these enclosed
objects...

Thansk anway

William

And I should have said in my other reply that the reason I can get at these
invisible(because overflowed) frames and other objects is that I am creating
them in ocde and hanging on to the objects as I do so. It seems problematic
getting at them when you resize a frame in the UI and overflow the innermost
boxes out of sight.

Ok - I am now able to reproduce this bug:

1 create a Single A4 page blank pub
2 insert an empty text box 24.7cm(h) by 16 cm(w) centred on the page (B1)
3 insert text box 15h x 13w (B2)
4 make B2 inline and place inside B1.
5 type text "This is several words of some demonstration text for Box 2"
into B2, set to 24 point
6 insert an empty text box 7h x 11w (B3)
7 make B3 inline and place inside B2 at end of the text
8 type text "This is several words of some demonstration text for Box 3"
into B3, set to 24 point
9 insert an empty picture frame 5 x 5 (P1)
10 make inline, place inside B3 before the first word
11 make P1 right aligned and set fill colour to grey

[11A Note here the other bug - drag the bottom edge of box B3 up so it half
obscures P1. the overflow indicator is not set, nor would you find it set in
code]

12 open the VB editor and insert the following code

Sub testboxtop()
Dim loThisShape(3) As Publisher.Shape
Dim loDupedShape As Publisher.Shape
With Pages(1)
   Set loThisShape(1) = .Shapes(1)
   With loThisShape(1)
       .Name = "B1"
       '.Select
       Set loThisShape(2) = .TextFrame.TextRange.InlineShapes(1)
       With loThisShape(2)
           .Name = "B2"
           '.Select
           Set loThisShape(3) = .TextFrame.TextRange.InlineShapes(1)
           
           .Height = .Height / 2
           
           With loThisShape(3)
               .Name = "B3"
               .TextFrame.TextRange.InlineShapes(1).Name = "P1"
               Set loDupedShape = .Duplicate
               'loDupedShape.Select
               .Delete
           End With
           
           With loDupedShape
               '.Select
               Debug.Print "after duplication before resizing B2"
               
               Debug.Print "REF0: box B3 position", .GetTop(pbUnitCM),
.GetHeight(pbUnitCM), .GetLeft(pbUnitCM), .GetWidth(pbUnitCM)
               With .TextFrame.TextRange.InlineShapes(1)
                   '.Select
                   
                   Debug.Print "REF1: shape P1 position",
.GetTop(pbUnitCM), .GetHeight(pbUnitCM), .GetLeft(pbUnitCM),
.GetWidth(pbUnitCM)
               End With
           End With
           
           .Height = .Height * 2
           
           With loDupedShape
               '.Select
               Debug.Print "after duplication after resizing B2 up"
               
               Debug.Print "REF2: box B3 position", .GetTop(pbUnitCM),
.GetHeight(pbUnitCM), .GetLeft(pbUnitCM), .GetWidth(pbUnitCM)
               With .TextFrame.TextRange.InlineShapes(1)
                   '.Select
                   
                   Debug.Print "REF3: shape P1 position",
.GetTop(pbUnitCM), .GetHeight(pbUnitCM), .GetLeft(pbUnitCM),
.GetWidth(pbUnitCM)
               End With
           End With
       
           .Height = .Height / 2
           
           With loDupedShape
               '.Select
               Debug.Print "after duplication after resizing B2 back down -
should be same as REF0,1"
               
               Debug.Print "REF4: box B3 position ", .GetTop(pbUnitCM),
.GetHeight(pbUnitCM), .GetLeft(pbUnitCM), .GetWidth(pbUnitCM)
               With .TextFrame.TextRange.InlineShapes(1)
                   '.Select
                   
                   Debug.Print "REF5: shape P1 position ",
.GetTop(pbUnitCM), .GetHeight(pbUnitCM), .GetLeft(pbUnitCM),
.GetWidth(pbUnitCM)
               End With
           End With
           
           .Height = .Height * 2
           
           With loDupedShape
               '.Select
               Debug.Print "after duplication after resizing B2 back up
again - should be same as REF2,3"
               
               Debug.Print "REF6: B3 position ", .GetTop(pbUnitCM),
.GetHeight(pbUnitCM), .GetLeft(pbUnitCM), .GetWidth(pbUnitCM)
               With .TextFrame.TextRange.InlineShapes(1)
                   '.Select
                   
                   Debug.Print "REF7: shape P1 position ",
.GetTop(pbUnitCM), .GetHeight(pbUnitCM), .GetLeft(pbUnitCM),
.GetWidth(pbUnitCM)
               End With
           End With
           
       End With
   End With
End With

End Sub

13 open the immediate window to view the debug output
14 save the publication to allow rework this at leisure!
15 adjust windows to see both the code and the publication
16 run the code and view the debug output

Results

Note the spurious image of the duplicated text box (B3) that remains half
into the scratch area.

The Top and Left positions of B3 immediately after it is duplicated as in
the immediate window under REF0 are wrong. Not only are they wrong but are
totally inconsistent with the position and left of shape P1 as in REF1. All
these should be the same as those found in REFs 2 and 3.

Note also how the shape P1 positions do remain correct despite the B£
positions being spasmodically wrong.

It is not enough to say "resize the outer box first..." because what I am
trying to do is overcome the bug noted in point 11A and to do that I need to
know the true bottom extent of B2...

What do you think I should do next to make sure MS is aware of these bugs?

William Hite