Making buttons out of text

1

I have had this problem since day 1 and have been using annoying work arounds. If I use the text tool and write the word ‘news’ and size the text box around it… then i can convert it to a button. In the end the button only reguards the text not the text box… in other words the mouse over or linkage only works when the mouse is over text only… so if your mouse is inbetween the letter N and E in ‘news’ it will not work. I want this so that the whole box is the button not just the outlines of the text. I have also tried converting it to a graphic then to a button but somehow the text still does this as a button which makes text buttons in flash very unusable… so hopefully I am doing something wrong! thanks