How do I find the filename of an inserted picture?

[greggsewell]

I'm a copyeditor and am prepping a document for layout.

It's about 400 pages long, and has around 600 images inserted, many of them inserted multiple times.

The author labeled each image with the filename, and I'm including that in my prepped Word file.

But occasionally the author forgot to label an image.

Looking through hundreds of images, even with Leopard's QuickLook, is tedious at best.

Is there a way to discover the filename of an inserted picture?

Thanks for your help.

 

[CyberTaz]

Unless the images were inserted as Linked objects Word doesn't know - nor
does it care - what the name or location of the original file may have been.
It doesn't track that information in any sort of accessible manner. I'm not
sure whether it's tracked as metadata or not, but even if it is it would be
rather problematic to dig out.

If you have access to InDesign or QuarkXPress you may be able to get that
info if you Place the doc into a enw publication. I'm not sure but it might
be worth a try.

HTH |:>)
Bob Jones
MVP Office:Mac

 

[greggsewell]

Thanks, Bob. Guess I'm just stuck with manually searching 600-plus images. At least, now I know that Word doesn't provide this info.

 

[John McGhie]

Hi Greg:

If you can persuade the author to LINK the images instead of embedding
them, then the filename is, of course, part of the INCLUDEPICTURE field

If you are working in .docx format, the original image files ARE linked,
whether the user intended that or not. To get at them:

1) Make a copy of the document (because you're about to destroy it...)

2) Change the extension of the copy from .docx to .zip

3) Unzip it. The document will turn into a folder. In the folder you will
find a little "website"

4) Open the .xml file as plain text and search for the picture's caption.

5) Note the explicit URI near it: that's the link to your image. Follow it
into the Images folder, and there's your graphics file

On a Mac, you won't be able to put the document back together once you have
done this, because Mac OS X writes a resource fork into the folder each time
you open a file, and Word interprets that as a "corrupted file".

If you are in .doc format, there is an ancient technique that might help.

Each image is embedded in the document in its native format.

If you save the document as RTF, then change the file extension and open it
as plain text, you can often read the raw code of the image file.

If the originating application for the image was kind enough to add the file
name to its saved image, you will be able to read it.

You first "Search" the file for the caption, then choose the nearest binary
blob and scan it by eye.

Hope this helps you sometime...

Cheers

Thanks, Bob. Guess I'm just stuck with manually searching 600-plus images. At
least, now I know that Word doesn't provide this info.

--
Don't wait for your answer, click here: http://www.word.mvps.org/

Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie, Consultant Technical Writer
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
http://jgmcghie.fastmail.com.au/
Nhulunbuy, Northern Territory, Australia

 

[greggsewell]

Wow, that's complicated. Understandable and clear; just a whole bunch of steps.

I think I'm probably better off just searching by eye in my case. The vast majority of the graphics I have are labeled with filenames.

The searching for captions wouldn't help me, since there are none. That's something I as editor am having to create as I move through the volume.

Thank you again for your help. It surely took a long time to type these instructions, and that's appreciated, even though I may only save, not use them.

 

[John McGhie]

Hi Greg:

Yeah, well *I* don't use them either until I get sufficiently desperate

The .docx method is very quick, once you get used to it.

Cheers

Wow, that's complicated. Understandable and clear; just a whole bunch of
steps.

I think I'm probably better off just searching by eye in my case. The vast
majority of the graphics I have are labeled with filenames.

The searching for captions wouldn't help me, since there are none. That's
something I as editor am having to create as I move through the volume.

Thank you again for your help. It surely took a long time to type these
instructions, and that's appreciated, even though I may only save, not use
them.

--
Don't wait for your answer, click here: http://www.word.mvps.org/

Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie, Consultant Technical Writer
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
http://jgmcghie.fastmail.com.au/
Nhulunbuy, Northern Territory, Australia