The best approach to both problems is to put both figure and caption
together in a frame. You can place the frame anywhere you like on the page,
including spanning columns.
The trick is how to insert a frame in Word 2007, as the command has been
made much more difficult to find. It's in the Legacy Forms palette of Legacy
Tools on the Developer tab (if you have that displayed), but that's the hard
way. The best solution is to add Insert Frame (from All Commands in the
Customize dialog) to the QAT. Then select your figure and caption together,
click the Insert Frame button, and then format your frame as desired.
The alternative is to use a text box for the caption (and group it with the
figure) or put both figure and caption in a text box. The drawback to this
is that, while Word 2007 can see text in a text box for purposes of
generating cross-references and a Table of Figures, earlier versions cannot,
so your document would not be backward-compatible.
And of course the easiest thing is to make both figure and caption In Line
With Text, but that is not a viable option if you need the figure always to
be at the top of the page (unless you're willing to end a column short--or
fudge a paragraph break--in order to accommodate it).
--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org
"swevrywhere" wrote in message
...
Hi,
So here's my problem. I am writing a 2-column technical paper in Word
2007. I've inserted a figure and a caption for it, and now I want to
place them at the top of the page (spanning one column). I've noticed
that you can move the figure to the top left or right of the page
(under the "arrange" group), but the caption doesn't follow along with
it. So now the figure looks great but the caption is left in the
middle of the page where it was before. Please, does anyone know how
to link a figure and its caption so that they move together?
Thanks!
Bonus question: does anyone know how to create a figure (and caption)
that span both columns at the top of a page? Thanks!