Is there a way to automatically place figures or tables in Word 365?
July 23, 2020 8:12 PM Subscribe
I'm working on a document with a lot of large figures. I want these images and their captions to be automatically reasonably placed within the document. The solution is not to use LaTeX; I have to use Word, so please don't suggest the thing I'd like to do but can't.
This is a formatting nightmare. The images in question take up about 1/2 to 1/3 of the page. When they get pushed to the next page because they don't quite fit on the current page, there is a large empty space.
Is there a way to fix this? Ideally, they would be automatically moved to the top of the next page and that empty space filled with text, like LaTeX can do. This seems like such a basic functionality, but I can't find any info on it, making me suspect Word can't do it.
If it's not possible to place them automatically, what is the next best solution? Placing them manually messes up how paragraphs break across pages, and Word refuses to fill up the rest of the page with text. It wants to move lines to the next page for no good reason (even if I make sure widow/orphan control is off). And this is a terrible solution because any future edits would throw the spacing off and I'd have to redo all 60 or so.
Surely there's got to be a way??????
This is a formatting nightmare. The images in question take up about 1/2 to 1/3 of the page. When they get pushed to the next page because they don't quite fit on the current page, there is a large empty space.
Is there a way to fix this? Ideally, they would be automatically moved to the top of the next page and that empty space filled with text, like LaTeX can do. This seems like such a basic functionality, but I can't find any info on it, making me suspect Word can't do it.
If it's not possible to place them automatically, what is the next best solution? Placing them manually messes up how paragraphs break across pages, and Word refuses to fill up the rest of the page with text. It wants to move lines to the next page for no good reason (even if I make sure widow/orphan control is off). And this is a terrible solution because any future edits would throw the spacing off and I'd have to redo all 60 or so.
Surely there's got to be a way??????
I've 'solved' this problem with a bad fix, which is to set a vertical page space for the image to be placed with page breaks, then placed the image there with text wrapping and 'in front of text'. Yes, if you change things you have to manually check positioning, but likely only the next image until the next page or section break. There's no ethical word processing under capitalism.
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 9:13 PM on July 23, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 9:13 PM on July 23, 2020 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: Fiasco, I don't quite follow your steps. What do you mean you make a vertical page space for the image using page breaks? What are you doing so that doesn't insert a whole blank page?
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 9:27 PM on July 23, 2020
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 9:27 PM on July 23, 2020
> I found this method:
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyPO2Mphm4Y
Hmm, that method worked rather well for me. I'm using a somewhat older version of Word (2012 maybe?) but I don't believe they have been changing that type of basic functionality. Could be wrong of course.
But my thoughts:
#1. In the table, when you right-click on the little square with arrows to set "table properties" be sure to change "positioning" to be relative to PAGE or maybe MARGIN.
But make sure positioning is NOT relative to paragraph. That will give you the behavior you describe.
You can see this starting at 1:17 in your video. He opens up that dialogue box, then as soon as he clicks "around" another button becomes active that says "positioning". Then he clicks that & un-checks "Move with text".
in that same dialogue, his values are "Horizontal - move with COLUMN" and "Vertical - move with PAGE". I'll bet you have "paragraph" chosen then instead of "page". Chose "page" instead and see if it makes a difference.
#2. You don't add space at the end of a table by putting an extra blank paragraph right after the table. Instead, go into "Table Properties" - "Table Position" - "Distance from surrounding text" and change "Bottom" distance to be something like 0.05 inches. That will give you actual blank space underneath the table, rather than just a blank line, which is a wildly different thing.
posted by flug at 9:38 PM on July 23, 2020 [4 favorites]
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyPO2Mphm4Y
Hmm, that method worked rather well for me. I'm using a somewhat older version of Word (2012 maybe?) but I don't believe they have been changing that type of basic functionality. Could be wrong of course.
But my thoughts:
#1. In the table, when you right-click on the little square with arrows to set "table properties" be sure to change "positioning" to be relative to PAGE or maybe MARGIN.
But make sure positioning is NOT relative to paragraph. That will give you the behavior you describe.
You can see this starting at 1:17 in your video. He opens up that dialogue box, then as soon as he clicks "around" another button becomes active that says "positioning". Then he clicks that & un-checks "Move with text".
in that same dialogue, his values are "Horizontal - move with COLUMN" and "Vertical - move with PAGE". I'll bet you have "paragraph" chosen then instead of "page". Chose "page" instead and see if it makes a difference.
#2. You don't add space at the end of a table by putting an extra blank paragraph right after the table. Instead, go into "Table Properties" - "Table Position" - "Distance from surrounding text" and change "Bottom" distance to be something like 0.05 inches. That will give you actual blank space underneath the table, rather than just a blank line, which is a wildly different thing.
posted by flug at 9:38 PM on July 23, 2020 [4 favorites]
If you know the height-dimension of the image you'll put in (say 10cm), set enough text on that page to leave that space below, insert a page break, then insert an image above it. Set the image 'wrap text' to 'in front of text'. Then move it on the page to where you'd like it.
It's not automatic placement, but it's the next best solution, because as you say, Word is not fit for this job.
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 9:40 PM on July 23, 2020
It's not automatic placement, but it's the next best solution, because as you say, Word is not fit for this job.
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 9:40 PM on July 23, 2020
Also, this is one of the most annoying and irritating facets of Word, based on like 30 years of using it.
One thing I've learned has to do with workflow:
First, is to go in & get all text, charts, diagrams, photos, etc etc set in place without worrying about this type of page layout issue at all. Just get everything there, in order, images & charts associated with the area in the text where you want them, and just ignore the horrible page breaks, large empty spaces, etc.
Then as the very last step before going to print, I work through the entire document, in order from the first page to the last (!IMPORTANT!) and fix up the page layout positioning of images, charts, diagrams, etc to my satisfaction.
This usually involves moving some images/charts from one page to another by hand, changing them from paragraph-positioned to page positioned (as outlined above), inserting the occasional hard page break exactly where I want it, etc.
Just saving the final page layout issues to that one final step--not worrying about them at all before that step--and working through systematically from page 1 to the end, saves like 99% of the "HALP! Word has ruined the 17 hours I spent last week on page formatting!!!!" issues.
Basically, we're surrendering to the fact that Word sucks at this and just adjusting our workflow to take this basic fact into account.
Now: If I make another major edit to the document later on, I follow that same procedure. I just go in and make edits to my little heart's content, not giving one single though to how this is destroying the page layout for the document.
Then when all edits are complete, I give the doc one final go-through from start to finish in order and fix all the page layout issues again.
On like a 30-page document with say 10-15 charts/images this takes 10 minutes tops as the final step before going to print.
Saves so many headaches.
posted by flug at 9:52 PM on July 23, 2020 [10 favorites]
One thing I've learned has to do with workflow:
First, is to go in & get all text, charts, diagrams, photos, etc etc set in place without worrying about this type of page layout issue at all. Just get everything there, in order, images & charts associated with the area in the text where you want them, and just ignore the horrible page breaks, large empty spaces, etc.
Then as the very last step before going to print, I work through the entire document, in order from the first page to the last (!IMPORTANT!) and fix up the page layout positioning of images, charts, diagrams, etc to my satisfaction.
This usually involves moving some images/charts from one page to another by hand, changing them from paragraph-positioned to page positioned (as outlined above), inserting the occasional hard page break exactly where I want it, etc.
Just saving the final page layout issues to that one final step--not worrying about them at all before that step--and working through systematically from page 1 to the end, saves like 99% of the "HALP! Word has ruined the 17 hours I spent last week on page formatting!!!!" issues.
Basically, we're surrendering to the fact that Word sucks at this and just adjusting our workflow to take this basic fact into account.
Now: If I make another major edit to the document later on, I follow that same procedure. I just go in and make edits to my little heart's content, not giving one single though to how this is destroying the page layout for the document.
Then when all edits are complete, I give the doc one final go-through from start to finish in order and fix all the page layout issues again.
On like a 30-page document with say 10-15 charts/images this takes 10 minutes tops as the final step before going to print.
Saves so many headaches.
posted by flug at 9:52 PM on July 23, 2020 [10 favorites]
Response by poster: #1. In the table, when you right-click on the little square with arrows to set "table properties" be sure to change "positioning" to be relative to PAGE or maybe MARGIN.
That's what I did.
#2. You don't add space at the end of a table by putting an extra blank paragraph right after the table. Instead, go into "Table Properties" - "Table Position" - "Distance from surrounding text" and change "Bottom" distance to be something like 0.05 inches.
This is one of the things I tried. ANY method of adding spacing I could think of results in the table jumping right back down to the next page, with the same large blank space.
... I've been working on this for the last five hours and I'm seriously ready to throw my laptop into a pond and just like, not hand in the dissertation.
The manual method is also not working for me because it messes up how paragraphs break about pages (large blank spaces like it's trying to do widow/orphan control even with that turned off). I will experiment with page breaks and see if that helps, so far I have been trying with line breaks.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 10:07 PM on July 23, 2020
That's what I did.
#2. You don't add space at the end of a table by putting an extra blank paragraph right after the table. Instead, go into "Table Properties" - "Table Position" - "Distance from surrounding text" and change "Bottom" distance to be something like 0.05 inches.
This is one of the things I tried. ANY method of adding spacing I could think of results in the table jumping right back down to the next page, with the same large blank space.
... I've been working on this for the last five hours and I'm seriously ready to throw my laptop into a pond and just like, not hand in the dissertation.
The manual method is also not working for me because it messes up how paragraphs break about pages (large blank spaces like it's trying to do widow/orphan control even with that turned off). I will experiment with page breaks and see if that helps, so far I have been trying with line breaks.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 10:07 PM on July 23, 2020
You could try changing the text wrapping in the table properties from "Around" to "None". That sometimes works for me.
Alternatively, also in Table Properties (if this is an okay compromise for you) make sure that you allow the rows to break across pages. This could split your table over two pages so you might have to make sure your header rows are repeated on the following page.
posted by Samarium at 2:07 AM on July 24, 2020
Alternatively, also in Table Properties (if this is an okay compromise for you) make sure that you allow the rows to break across pages. This could split your table over two pages so you might have to make sure your header rows are repeated on the following page.
posted by Samarium at 2:07 AM on July 24, 2020
Maybe too late, but in my experience (3 theses, very large reports), setting the all tables/figures 'wrap text - in front of text OR top and botton' and using page breaks where needed seems to work best.
The figures/tables are treated as objects separate from the text and it seems to stop them jumping around as much. Also make sure you group any captions with the figures and set them both to the same wrap text setting.
Good luck!
posted by sedimentary_deer at 2:42 AM on July 24, 2020
The figures/tables are treated as objects separate from the text and it seems to stop them jumping around as much. Also make sure you group any captions with the figures and set them both to the same wrap text setting.
Good luck!
posted by sedimentary_deer at 2:42 AM on July 24, 2020
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyPO2Mphm4Y
But it doesn't work. If I put any spacing after the table (so the following text isn't squashed right up against it), it just jumps back down to the next page again like I wasn't using the positioning option at all. It doesn't care what method I use to insert the spacing (margins, line spacing, etc).
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 8:41 PM on July 23, 2020