Captions in pictures/clip art

[Terry Lowe]

I have an older document that was created in Word 6.0 and all of the clipart
pictures appear to be in "frames" which I've read are no longer used in
newer versions. When I Insert and center a caption in these images, the
caption works perfectly. But when I insert new "pictures" in Word XP and
Insert and center a caption, the caption is centered relative to the page
and not the 4 inch picture above it. Does anyone know how to fix this? Or is
there a way to create the "older" style images that the older version used?
My understanding of the older "frames" is that they were similar to the
current "drawing canvas". Is there an easy way to insert my new pictures in
a drawing canvas? Maybe that will control the caption problem. Sorry for
rambling but thanks for the help.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Frames are still very much available in current versions of Word and indeed
are the best way to keep a graphic and caption together. Word has just made
it a bit harder to do this (by removing Frame from the Insert menu and
pushing the use of text boxes). Here are several approaches:

1. To insert a caption beneath an existing framed graphic, click on the
graphic, press Right Arrow to get beyond the graphic but not outside the
frame, and press Enter. This will give you a new paragraph in which you can
insert the caption.

2. To insert a new graphic and caption, insert the graphic "In Line with
Text" (in a text paragraph), then the caption in a separate paragraph below
it. Select both graphic and caption and Insert | Frame. You will find that
Frame is not on the Insert menu by default, but you can add it using Tools |
Customize. There is also an Insert Frame button on the Forms toolbar that
you can use to try out this procedure.

There are numerous advantages to this approach:

1. Framed objects are in the text layer, so they are visible in Normal view.
Moreover, the caption can be "seen" by Word for purposes of generating
cross-references, Table of Figures, etc.

2. If you insert a graphic floating ("wrapped"), its caption will have to be
in a text box grouped to the graphic in order to stay with it (or the
graphic and caption will have to be in a text box together). Both floating
graphics and text boxes are in the drawing layer, where (a) they can't be
seen in Normal view, and (b) they are invisible to Word for purposes of
Xrefs, TOFs, etc.

Wherever possible it is preferable to insert graphics and captions inline
(In Line with Text), as they are much easier to handle this way (you can
control placement with paragraph formatting or by putting them in a table),
but if you must wrap text around them, a frame is the way to go.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://www.mvps.org/word
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

 

[Ronald Snelgrove]

Suzanne,

I think that I have a similar problem, but I'm not quite sure. I am
relatively new to Word, and am using Word97 (I know, how can I be new to
Word and be using such an old version -- it's a long story .

Anyway, I have created a diagram from the shapes (lines, boxes, et cetera)
available on the "Drawing" toolbar. What I would like to do is associate a
caption with this figure, and have the two (figure + caption) behave as one,
i.e. be moved from one location to another, or float to the next page if
there isn't enough room on the current page for them to fit. I come from
the Unix world where I used a markup system (LaTeX) where this kind of stuff
happened easily, so I'm at a bit of a loss here.

Cheers,
Ron Snelgrove

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Drawing objects can't easily be made inline in Word 97, so you can't use a
frame. You can put the caption in a text box and group it with the rest of
the drawing objects, but this will have the usual disadvantages of text
boxes. If you're sure the graphic won't need to be edited, you might try
grouping everything, then using Copy, Paste Special as Picture. Once the
"drawing" is a "picture," it can be made inline (on the Position tab of
Format Picture, clear the check box for "Float over text"); then you can
proceed as you would with any other picture.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://www.mvps.org/word
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.