Pictures & Captions

[Jethro Pull]

I am editing a 300 page book about our local history in MS-Word 2007. Our
historical society has lots of scanned images to include in the text,

I am slowly losing my sanity trying to place an image and it's caption and
have them remain where I placed them. I'm up to page 150, have over 80
images and captions with at least that many more to come.

Almost every time I save, close, and reopen, some of the images and captions
have wandered off to a new location.

As I read this newsgroup, it appears as if I should be creating a text box
and putting the image and its caption inside the text box. Will that nail
their location down regardless of text moves around the image ... like
putting in a word or phrase that moves the text?

I've got Faithe's book and can't find any help on this issue, ditto for Herb
Tyson's book ... but I'm going back to both and check.

TIA.

 

[Robert M. Franz [RMF]]

Hello Jethro

I am editing a 300 page book about our local history in MS-Word 2007. Our
historical society has lots of scanned images to include in the text,

I am slowly losing my sanity trying to place an image and it's caption and
have them remain where I placed them. I'm up to page 150, have over 80
images and captions with at least that many more to come.

Almost every time I save, close, and reopen, some of the images and captions
have wandered off to a new location.

what kind of layout are you trying to create in Word? How wide are the
pictures compared to your body text width (or the page size mines left
and right margins, should this be different)?

In a document you describe, with so many pictures, I strongly recommend
to insert the pictures "inline with text" only.

[You can make this the default for inserted new pictures: Office button
| Word Options | Advanced | Cut, Copy, Paste | Insert images as ...]

Word then treats pictures like a large character, so you give it its own
paragraph and place the caption paragraph below it. You even give the
picture paragraph its own paragraph style (no fixed line height, and
"keep with next" so Word won't separate pictures and caption).

Don't try to place the picture outside of the text area. Yes, it looks
cool and you can let the text flow around the picture, but you're
probably finding the hard way right now that it's tough to manage.

[I don't say it cannot be done, if you've completely understood the
other options, how picture anchors work, etc. I've used such pictures
sparingly in annual reports of about 50 pages. But especially when your
document goes through a lot of revisions, it's a real hassle!]

2¢
Robert

 

[Jethro Pull]

Wow, I was afraid I wasn't going to get any help on this:

1. What kind of layout? Not sure what you mean, I'm using 5-1/2 x 8-1/2
pages with margins about the same as some books of the same size. Just to
keep things interesting, I put in large images of maps, smaller images of
pictures sometimes centered (top and bottom text), sometimes left margin
with wrap and sometimes right margin with wrap. I'm trying not to be
predictable with respect to how images look. BTW, this is all in black and
white.
2. I will try your "inline" suggestion. It never seemed like a good option,
so I never used it, but it's worth a try and it seems to have inherent
characteristics to keep image locations under control.
3. Intriguing as it may look, I haven't tried to place any images outside
the margins. It seemed too problematic.

Thanks for your time. I really appreciate it. One of the problems is that,
with all the image insertion option checkboxes, a math whiz can calculate
probably hundreds of possible combinations of checked and unchecked options
and, after six months of messing around, I still haven't found the right
combination ... but I'm going to give your inline suggestion a try.

Thanks, again.

BTW, with almost 19 chapters, would you save each chapter by itself when it
is finished and put them all back together (fix all page numbers and
endnotes in the process of reassembling), or work on the entire document at
one time?

Hello Jethro

I am editing a 300 page book about our local history in MS-Word 2007. Our
historical society has lots of scanned images to include in the text,

I am slowly losing my sanity trying to place an image and it's caption
and have them remain where I placed them. I'm up to page 150, have over
80 images and captions with at least that many more to come.

Almost every time I save, close, and reopen, some of the images and
captions have wandered off to a new location.

what kind of layout are you trying to create in Word? How wide are the
pictures compared to your body text width (or the page size mines left and
right margins, should this be different)?

In a document you describe, with so many pictures, I strongly recommend to
insert the pictures "inline with text" only.

[You can make this the default for inserted new pictures: Office button |
Word Options | Advanced | Cut, Copy, Paste | Insert images as ...]

Word then treats pictures like a large character, so you give it its own
paragraph and place the caption paragraph below it. You even give the
picture paragraph its own paragraph style (no fixed line height, and "keep
with next" so Word won't separate pictures and caption).

Don't try to place the picture outside of the text area. Yes, it looks
cool and you can let the text flow around the picture, but you're probably
finding the hard way right now that it's tough to manage.

[I don't say it cannot be done, if you've completely understood the other
options, how picture anchors work, etc. I've used such pictures sparingly
in annual reports of about 50 pages. But especially when your document
goes through a lot of revisions, it's a real hassle!]

2¢
Robert
--
/"\ ASCII Ribbon Campaign | MSFT |
\ / | MVP | Scientific Reports
X Against HTML | for | with Word?
/ \ in e-mail & news | Word | http://www.masteringword.eu/

 

[Robert M. Franz [RMF]]

Hello Jethro

1. What kind of layout? Not sure what you mean, I'm using 5-1/2 x 8-1/2
pages with margins about the same as some books of the same size. Just to
keep things interesting, I put in large images of maps, smaller images of
pictures sometimes centered (top and bottom text), sometimes left margin
with wrap and sometimes right margin with wrap. I'm trying not to be
predictable with respect to how images look. BTW, this is all in black and
white.

OK, that's the mixed layout I'm always afraid of ...

2. I will try your "inline" suggestion. It never seemed like a good option,
so I never used it, but it's worth a try and it seems to have inherent
characteristics to keep image locations under control.

Yes, concerning image placement, this is the only one that's rock solid.
All the others, well ...

You might want to read up a bit here:

http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/DrawingGraphics.htm

Most articles are probably for Word 2003 and lower, but the concepts
have not changed in this respect.

3. Intriguing as it may look, I haven't tried to place any images outside
the margins. It seemed too problematic.

For images (horizontally) totally outside the margins, there's a nice
frame-based approach (very neat because it can be incorporated into a
paragraph style, and you can even tell Word to show the picture either
always in the left margin, always on the right margin, or always in the
outside or inside margin). Suzanne Barnhill descibes this approach at:

http://sbarnhill.mvps.org/WordFAQs/MarginalText.htm


[..]

BTW, with almost 19 chapters, would you save each chapter by itself when it
is finished and put them all back together (fix all page numbers and
endnotes in the process of reassembling), or work on the entire document at
one time?

No, I would not. Word should not have a problem with the file per se (I
presume you have read up on template and style setup ... there's a
_couple_ of articles on the MVP page about these subjects as well.

But I suggest frequent backups! And to keep all the images you insert as
separate files as well (historically, Word has never been a
good/reliable container for picture and other "objects").

Good luck!
Robert

 

[Jethro Pull]

Just one more question (he said boldly lying): Using your inline technique,
I can't view the image. I just see the horizontal bottom 15%. It would be
viewable if I were to wrap top & bottom, etc., but that would lose the
characteristics of an inline place holder ... no?

Off to read Suzanne's stuff and the MVPS page ... thanks.

Mixed layout? Mixed as to what? (Just kick me off to the MVPS site for this
answer, if you wish.)

Thanks, again.

BTW, a good backup/versioning technique I use is, immediately upon opening,
Save As "20090625 - [filename]". Next day: "20090626 - [filename]". This
keeps a couple extra versions handy, plus I use SynchToy to copy stuff,
usually daily, to an external drive. I think it's the "cat's meow" vis-a-vis
backing up.

Hello Jethro

1. What kind of layout? Not sure what you mean, I'm using 5-1/2 x 8-1/2
pages with margins about the same as some books of the same size. Just to
keep things interesting, I put in large images of maps, smaller images of
pictures sometimes centered (top and bottom text), sometimes left margin
with wrap and sometimes right margin with wrap. I'm trying not to be
predictable with respect to how images look. BTW, this is all in black
and white.

OK, that's the mixed layout I'm always afraid of ...

2. I will try your "inline" suggestion. It never seemed like a good
option, so I never used it, but it's worth a try and it seems to have
inherent characteristics to keep image locations under control.

Yes, concerning image placement, this is the only one that's rock solid.
All the others, well ...

You might want to read up a bit here:

http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/DrawingGraphics.htm

Most articles are probably for Word 2003 and lower, but the concepts have
not changed in this respect.

3. Intriguing as it may look, I haven't tried to place any images
outside the margins. It seemed too problematic.

For images (horizontally) totally outside the margins, there's a nice
frame-based approach (very neat because it can be incorporated into a
paragraph style, and you can even tell Word to show the picture either
always in the left margin, always on the right margin, or always in the
outside or inside margin). Suzanne Barnhill descibes this approach at:

http://sbarnhill.mvps.org/WordFAQs/MarginalText.htm


[..]

BTW, with almost 19 chapters, would you save each chapter by itself when
it is finished and put them all back together (fix all page numbers and
endnotes in the process of reassembling), or work on the entire document
at one time?

No, I would not. Word should not have a problem with the file per se (I
presume you have read up on template and style setup ... there's a
_couple_ of articles on the MVP page about these subjects as well.

But I suggest frequent backups! And to keep all the images you insert as
separate files as well (historically, Word has never been a good/reliable
container for picture and other "objects").

Good luck!
Robert
--
/"\ ASCII Ribbon Campaign | MSFT |
\ / | MVP | Scientific Reports
X Against HTML | for | with Word?
/ \ in e-mail & news | Word | http://www.masteringword.eu/

 

[Robert M. Franz [RMF]]

Just one more question (he said boldly lying): Using your inline technique,
I can't view the image. I just see the horizontal bottom 15%. It would be
viewable if I were to wrap top & bottom, etc., but that would lose the
characteristics of an inline place holder ... no?

the paragraph your picture is in is set to exact line height. (MSFT has
changed the default Normal style to have an exact line height in Word
2007, which isn't a bad thing per se.) The cleanest solution is to
create a paragraph style for your pictures, based on Normal or <no
style>, and you can change the line height to "at least ..."

Using "top and bottom" for pictures is the worst option IMHO: you loose
the solidity of the inline approach, but (obviously) don't need any
fancy text-flow-around ...

Off to read Suzanne's stuff and the MVPS page ... thanks.

Mixed layout? Mixed as to what? (Just kick me off to the MVPS site for this
answer, if you wish.)

No secret there, I just meant using all sorts of picture sizes. Doesn't
make your life easier, that's for sure.

Good luck!
Robert

 

[Jethro Pull]

You are great! Thanks for all your help and insight.

 

[Robert M. Franz [RMF]]

You are great! Thanks for all your help and insight.

[..]

you're welcome!

Greetinx from good old Europe
Robert