On 13 Aug 2006 04:40:11 -0700, "Elmer" wrote:
Suzanne S. Barnhill wrote:
Which is why it is especially frustrating that, if you use
Insert | Caption with a floating (wrapped) object selected, Word puts the
caption in a text box (you'll need to either convert that to a frame or pull
the text out, change the wrapping on the figure to In Line With Text, and
insert both figure and caption in a single frame).
While you (and Jezebel) have been invaluable in this mini-lesson, the
above is so VERY recondite, I wonder if more than three people in the
entire world, the author of WORD included, knows exactly what it means
!
It may be recondite, but it becomes painfully obvious when you make a
document with lots of floating figures with captions, and you find
that you can't make a Table of Figures to go with the Table of
Contents.
I can assure you that there are at least three dozen people who
understand this, even if the Word developers don't. :-)
Some differences between frames and text boxes:
1. The text in a text box is always in the Normal style (though you can
change it to some other style after inserting the text box). Since a frame
can be included in a paragraph style, you can use any style, and you can
insert the frame just by applying the style; for one use of this, see
http://sbarnhill.mvps.org/WordFAQs/MarginalText.htm.
2. Both frames and text boxes have a border by default. To remove the border
from a frame, you must use Format | Borders and Shading | None; to remove
the border from a text box, you must use Format Text Box | Colors and Lines
| No Line. If you want a border on a frame, you can have it on all or
specified sides, and you can use different borders (different style, weight,
color) on different sides; a text box border is all or nothing, a box.
Ah, now this is a difference my pea brain can "wrap itself" around.
3. Frames can be positioned almost as precisely as text boxes (relative to
page, column, margin, paragraph), but their wrapping limited to None
(inline) and Around (wrapped). Wrapping on text boxes can use any of the
styles available for any AutoShape or drawing object (Behind Text, In Front
of Text, Square, Tight, etc.). What this means in practical terms is that
you need a text box if you want to layer text over a picture, but a frame is
what you need for a figure and its caption, which you are not likely to want
to put in front of or behind text but do want to keep together and make
visible to the Table of Figures.
Back to tumbleweeds here. By "wrapping" do you mean "word wrapping?"
No, this is what the dialogs call "text wrapping", meaning how frames
or text boxes push regular text out of the way. In contrast, "word
wrapping" refers to how text inside the box flows to the next line. (I
didn't make up these terms, and they wouldn't have been my choice.)
4. Text boxes, since they are in the drawing layer, are not visible in
Normal view. Frames are, but their positioning is not; that is, if they are
wrapped, they will still appear inline.
Tumbling along with 'dem tumbling tumbleweeds....
If you tumble long enough, you might pick up something useful!
--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP FAQ:
http://word.mvps.org
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