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Colin Higbie
 
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Thanks, I'm learning that the inline is the best solution, or maybe better
to say, the one with the most minor problems.

Word 2003 has not fixed the problem with breaking widow and orphan control,
so that's still an issue, although it may not affect inline graphics - don't
know yet.

I decided to create a style for paragraphs that hold my graphics. Many of
them are full page width, meaning in the Normal style, they are positioned
against the left margin and then fall off the right edge of the page. I
think it was to avoid that issue that I originally changed from the inline
default in Word 2003 to forcing the text to only above and below the
graphic.

- Colin

"Shauna Kelly" wrote in message
...
Hi Colin

I share much of your frustration. But the more I understand what's going
on behind the scenes, the more I can control at least some of it.

First, a graphic can be either floating (meaning it has an anchor, and you
can drag it easily) or it can be in-line (so it behaves like one big
character). For more on this, see
The draw layer: a metaphysical space
http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/DrwGrphcs/DrawLayer.htm

In-line graphics are always easier to handle. They don't slip and slide
around the place quite like floating ones do. So unless you explicitly
need to wrap text around a graphic, use in-line graphics.

Second, different versions of Word paste graphics, by default, in
different ways. In Word 2000 they're all pasted, by default, as floating.
So every time I paste in a graphic in Word 2000, I double-click the
graphic, click the Layout tab, and change it to In Line with Text. In Word
2002 and 2003 you have some control over the default pasting at Tools
Options Edit.

Finally, for floating graphics, the anchors are the key. Always make sure
you can see them by doing Tools Options View and ticking Object
Anchors. And always make sure the anchors are attached to an appropriate
paragraph. Word will try anything it can to get a picture and its anchor
on the same page. So there is, in effect, a two-step process. (1) Anchor
the graphic to the right paragraph by dragging the anchor. (2) Positon the
graphic appropriately. If dragging isn't achieving what you need,
double-click the graphic, choose the Layout tab and click Advanced.

Objects in the middle of a paragraph also seem to break the No
Widow/Orphan feature.

Yes, I've seen that before. I think it was fixed in Word 2003.

There are other articles listed at
http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/DrwGrphcs/index.htm that might also help.

Hope this helps.

Shauna Kelly. Microsoft MVP.
http://www.shaunakelly.com/word


"Colin Higbie" wrote in message
...
I don't understand how Word places graphic objects. It seems random, but
I'm sure there's a pattern to the madness. If anyone could explain it to
me in a way I could use, I'd really appreciate it. I'm going crazy trying
to work with it.

Sometimes, I see the anchor for an object when I select it, so I can drag
that to assign it to other paragraphs. Other times, there is no anchor.
Sometimes when I drag an object to a location, it bounces to another
page. It rarely goes where I put it.

This is made worse by the fact that when I drag the object, the dotted
outline suggests it will go in a certain place, but then when I release
the mouse, it disappears and I have to scroll around through the pages to
find where it went. I think it's always within a page of where I put it.

Objects in the middle of a paragraph also seem to break the No
Widow/Orphan feature. A paragraph with an object in the middle may well
have a single isolated line at the bottom of a page (right above the
graphic) or the top of the following page (widow or orphan). It doesn't
seem to matter how I set the Advanced Layout options are for Text
Wrapping.

Is there a way to predict or stabilize this behavior? What is the logic
behind this chaotic and annoying behavior? If there are no good answers
to these questions, can we expect that these bugs (as far as I'm
concerned that's what these are) will be fixed in the next version of
Word? I guess if MS hasn't gotten it right in 10 years of making Word for
Windows, they aren't likely to start now.

It seems like Word isn't really meant to work with anything but text. I
know it's not a real layout program like Quark or InDesign, but embedding
a basic Excel table or Visio diagram should work. WordPerfect has no
problem performing these basic functions.

Thanks for any help,
Colin