Figures in Long Documents – recommended method? (2

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(Edited by HansV to make URL clickable – see Help 19)

New thread, regarding long documents and Figures. I am going to write my thesis by writing the various chapters in separate documents, and then combining them at the very end into a single document.
My new question is: what is the recommended method for inserting Figures in long documents? I am particularly concerned in controlling their layout (which I’ve seen can become unruly), having captions (i.e. Figure 1 – Restriction Map of xxx), being able to index them at the end into a “List of Figures”, and being able to control where the pictures are stored in relation to the document (so I can back them up).

– Some advice I received a while ago from a previous student advocated the use of “Frames”. However, it appears that the meaning of Frames has changed in Word 2002. Is it safe to use “Insert Figure”? Is layout easily controllable, predictable?
– From “]http://www.shaunakelly.com/word/figures/ke…th_CaptionBelow%5D%5B/url%5D, I see a typical layout problem – keeping a Caption in the same page as a Figure. The author recommends for cases where Caption is below the Figure that the user make a custom “Figure” style where (a) Line spacing is set to Single and ( Paragraph format is set to Keep With Next. That sounds reasonable. Any other similar caveats that might be incorporated into a custom style?
– From another user in this forum, I learned of the distinction on the Insert button between “Insert”, “Link to File” and “Insert and Link”. This is useful to know as a “Link to File” has definite advantages in document size and others. Possible drawback is the possibility of losing the reference depending on how the link is coded (i.e. relative vs absolute) if I move the files (which is likely as I move from laptop to desktop). Will look more into it. Also, will the “link to files” in a “chapter1.doc” be preserved if I copy and paste it into a Thesis.doc or if I use the Master/subdoc. hierarchy? And/or do macros exist that can scan a document and convert “link to files” to “inserts”, and/or vice-versa?

Any other tips/caveats that I should know before I embark on this mountain of work? I know these are a lot of questions, but I know that decisions made right now in the beginning of the process can save lots of hassle and headaches later on, so any advice or link to relevant article/tutorial would be really appreciated.

Thanks a lot,
Alex

P.S. My apologies if some of these questions have been answered before (I am sure some have) but I was unable to locate them from a cursory search of the forum or google…

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I would avoid the use of pictures floating over text. Inline pictures are ok, and pictures in a frame are ok too (see Shauna Kelly’s article about creating a frame)

If you move documents and linked pictures around, the links may get broken. See macropod‘s Star Post Update paths in INCLUDETEXT et al. (Word 2000/XP) for a tool to help repairing the links.

You can convert a linked picture to an inserted picture: Ctrl+Shift+F9 unlinks all fields in the selection. Selection.Fields.Unlink is the VBA equivalent. But once a picture has been unlinked, you can’t relink it. You’ll have to delete it and reinsert a link.

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I’ve written a number of long documents in the past.
Instead of masterdocuments, I use the RD field in a shell document. The shell document can contain the Title pages, TOC, Table of Figures, list of RD fields and Index.
When you update and print the shell document, it gets all the TOC, TOF and index entries from all the referenced documents. You then print the chapters separately.
I sometimes use Folio-by-chapter numbering to avoid all the hassles of figuring out the page numbers for each chapter.

I did a quick scan of this forum looking for more discussion of the RD field method of managing long document but couldn’t find any.

Re the figures:
I always define a style called “Picture” which has “Keep with next” set and “Style for following paragraph = Caption”. I always put pictures inline and often use “link to “. Keeping pictures in the same directory as the text seems to help prevent them getting lost.

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Hi Hans and Judith,

Thanks for the advice. Inline pictures it’ll be (Hans, I think Frames in Word 2002 are a completely different thing – like a web frame rather than a container for something else). Perhaps Pictures now have taken over some of the old Frames functionality. Either way, Frames are not an option so I’ll stick with inline pictures as per your advice. Also thanks for the info. on links. I’ve already downloaded the field updater macro. I’m nearly certain I’ll need it at some point.
And, Judith, it’s good to hear that RD fields are an option. I first learned about them in a previous thread. I also tried to learn a bit more about it by searching here and there but haven’t found anything too detailed. Does anyone have a good link to a description of its functionality? I’ll definitely keep it as an option if masterdocs give me any trouble at all – and that’s assuming that masterdocs will make the pagination easier (Folio-by-chapter is very unlikely to be acceptable for a thesis). If masterdocs acts up at all (and it’s likely to given all the negative feelings about it!) the process you suggest sounds simple and reliable (except for the hassle of pagination).
Re:re the figures – I like your Pictures style idea. That’s why it’s good to ask these questions now – so that I proceed with a predefined style from the very beginning. Regarding the path requirements, I did a quick test – I put a bunch of figures in a figures folder within the thesis folder. Inserted pictures as “link to”, saved, closed docs. Then I moved the thesis folder to a completely different directory structure and the pictures surprisingly still were there. So at least in this case the figures remained in a relative path location, which is good. But I bet they’ll break at some point…

Thanks again.
-Alex

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The “frames” that were used in older versions of Word are still available in Word 2002 (and 2003, I assume), but in a roundabout way:

– Select Insert | Text Box.
– Drag a rectangle.
– With the text box selected, select Format | Text Box…
– Activate the Text Box tab.
– Click Convert to Frame.

I would use inline pictures where possible, though.

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Ah, thought of one more question. I tested out a few Figures and even got the numbering right (matching Chapter, etc “Figure 3.1”). But then I decided to build a Table of Figures and I realized something: I want to be able to have the Caption style be the “title” of the Figure, but have it be followed immediately (w/o paragraph) by text that constitutes the Figure Legend. Then, when I make a Table of Figures only the Caption will be used (Figure 3.1 – Restriction Map of X), and not the Figure Legend. How do I do this?
In my current setup I have a “Picture” style whose “style for next paragraph” is “Caption”. I have already edited the “Caption” style to my liking (bold, left-justified). I insert “Caption” from InsertReferenceCaption and I type the title of the Figure (“Restriction Map of X.”). Now I want to continue typing the figure legend in some other style (non-bold, i.e.) that will not be included in a Table of Figures. I guess what I want is essentially a new style without a paragraph break. Is this possible? Or is there another way around this?

Thanks,
Alex

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The common “trick” for doing this in Word 2002 is to put the new text in a Normal paragraph, that follows the caption and then to hide the paragraph mark at the end of the caption paragraph.

StuartR

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Ok. Sounds good but what do you mean by “hiding the paragraph mark”? Do you mean convert it to something like a “non-line-breaking-paragraph-mark”, if such a thing exists?
Thanks,
Alex

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See attachment I just added above. View All to show paragraph marks. Select the paragraph mark. Format Font Hidden

StuartR

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Holy cow. What a trick. Never would have stumbled upon that, especially as the correct result only appears in Print Preview. Actually that makes me wonder – is this trick reliable? i.e. in your experience have you seen lead to unforeseen consequences, or is pretty safe?

Thanks a lot,
Alex

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The reason you saw the wrong result except in Print Preview mode was because of the Options > View > Show All. If you have set word to show hidden text then you can still see this paragraph mark. Similarly if you used Options > Print > Hidden text then print preview would also show the wrong thing.

StyleSeparator is definitely a better solution though, for some reason I thought this was new with Word 2003, learn something new every day.

StuartR

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Thought I’d chime in. In Word 2K, insert frame seemed to disappear, but the icon is on the Forms toolbar (of all places!). The command was still listed in the “All Commands” of the customize toolbar. Maybe its the same in the version you’re using. You can still have an in-line drawing or picture and wrap text around it and the caption by inserting a frame while they’re both selected. We have people here who put drawings & captions in table cells to wrap text around because to them its easier than conquering frames. But hidden returns are not seen as hidden in frames or table cells and there doesn’t seem to be anything you can do about it.

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Thanks for the info on Frames. Had never heard of using Tables as a substitute. Interesting idea. In the end, I think it’ll be safer for me to avoid all text wrapping around figures in my big document. Less hassle and I probably won’t need it. But it’s good to know it’s possible to do (maybe!).
Thanks,
Alex

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In addition to the tried-and-true hiding method, MS introduced a “style separator” to allow multiple paragraph styles inside the same physical paragraph. Now I can’t remember whether that was in 2002 or 2003… actually, this might not accomplish what you want in your table, I’ve never tried it myself.

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Ah, excellent. That works (in 2002). A little preferable to the “hiding” method as the “style separator” seems to have been built precisely for the purpose I mentioned and the formating looks correct in either viewing mode (without having to resort to Print Preview). The Table of Figures was prepared correctly in either case.

Thanks,
Alex

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This style separator sounds interesting …. how do you use it… a quick search of online help didn’t reveal anything.

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The style separator was introduced in Word 2002. I found this site to explain it pretty well (despite the misspelling in the title of the page!):
http://www.kisys.com/Tips/Style_separator.htm%5B/url%5D

Cheers,
-Alex

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