Hi pat-

You should be able to reduce the size of the canvas to exactly fit the size
(H & V dimensions) of it's content. If the canvas won't allow that then there
must be more within it that you cannot see... Something with No Fill/No Line
White Fill/White Line, or some combination of those attributes, perhaps? 3d
or Drop Shadows that have become 'invisible' because of other formatting
changes?

You just can't resize it to be smaller than it's content.

You can also drag the shape out of the canvas & then delete the canvas
altogether. In fact, if you go to Tools>Options>General, you can remove the
check that causes a canvas to be used for drawing objects so there won't be
one created in the first place.

HTH |:>)