Picture Placement (Word 2000 SP3)

[amz1]

I'm having a terrible time controlling the placement of pictures in Word. Basically, the pictures don't seem to pay attention to the document margins. How can I:

a) Ensure that if I insert a picture into Word that the entire picture will appear within the margins?

[img]/forums/images/smilies/cool.gif[/img] Be sure that if I put a caption with the picture it will remain with the picture even if the picture is moved?

By the way, the the formatting requirements for the document do not allow me to wrap text on the side of the pictures. So the basic structure is:

Text text text
Picture
Caption
Text text text

Many thanks in advance for any suggestions, and for all the useful advice I've been receiving here on other problems as well. This is a great community.

regards,
Abe

[HansV]

Make the pictures inline with text, i.e. not floating. Place each picture in its own paragraph, and each caption as well. If you have a caption, set the partagraph that contains the picture to "keep with next", so that the caption will not move to the next page by itself if the picture is near the bottom of a page.
Inline pictures are much easier to control than floating pictures.

[amz1]

The pictures are already set to inline, so I don't think that's the source of the problem.

In addition to the margin issue that I mentioned in my original post, some of my pictures are also covered by the text that proceeds the picture. In other words, if I have a paragraph of text, then a picture (in its own paragraph), then a caption (in its own paragraph), and then another paragraph of text, all but the very bottom of the picture does not appear. If I click on the picture, I see its outline (i.e. the handles) running up into the text above. Of the three pictures currently in the document, this happens with two of them (but not the third, for reasons that I can't fathom).

I'm also finding that, although Word previously allowed me to insert captions, now when I press insert caption, the window comes up, but I'm unable to type anything in the Caption area (and the Caption area does not already contain "Figure #" as it previously did).

Even more strangely, if I copy the same text and picture to a new empty document, the picture looks fine, I'm able to insert a caption, etc. But when I copy this back to the original document, I still have the same problem with the picture, although the caption now looks ok.

Is it possible that all of this is the result of having such a large document (450 pages)? In any case, what can I do about it?

I really appreciate all the help!

Abe

[Phil Rabichow]

Hi Abe:
If the text is showing through your pictures, they are NOT inline. When you click on the picture to select it, you will see black squares with white as the fill. That means they are floating. If you switch to normal view, they should disappear. To make them inline, select them, right click & choose Format/Picture. Then go to the wrapping tab & choose inline. If you then select the picture, you will see solid black square handles.

While a large document won't fit in the Lounge, perhaps if you make a copy of the document & delete all but a few pages that contain the problems, you can get the size down below 100kb (you might have to zip it). Then we could take a look at it. There may be some corruption.

[StuartR]

If you have your Paragraph format line spacing set to exactly.... this would cause the picture to get "truncated" at the specified line spacing. Could you try selecting the paragraph with your picture and looking at Format > Paragraph > Indents and Spacing > Spacing > Line Spacing and make sure that the drop down dialog box is not set to EXACTLY.

StuartR

[amz1]

Hi Phil,

Thanks for the response. When I go to Format/Picture, they do appear to be inline. Just to clarify, it isn't that the text is showing "through" the pictures, so much as that only 1 "line" of the picture is visible. I'm not sure if that makes sense, but I've attached a fragment of the document that has one picture in it. Please let me know if it looks the same to you. Many thanks,
Abe

[StuartR]

Paragraph spacing for the picture is indeed set to "Exactly 24 pt", change this to "At least 24pt" or Single and your picture will be fine.

StuartR

[amz1]

Bingo! That's exactly it! My university requires that dissertations be set to exactly 24 point, instead of just plain old double spaced. I changed the paragraph mark for the picture to a different style and it instantly appeared correctly. Many many thanks!
Abe