I understand that the default way Word inserts captions and references makes
them unsearchable, unable to be autoreferenced (in a TOC or index), and
inaccessible to the Update Field command (a real pain if the numbers end up
off for any reason). I'm using Word 2003 with all the latest patches on
Windows XP w/SP2.

I have been converting all my caption text boxes to frames, as recommended.
It does seem to address these problems. I hope this is the right thing to
do?

My main question: Assuming that's correct (that I should be using frames for
captions instead of the default text boxes), is there any way to get Word to
insert Captions automatically in frames instead of text boxes?

I have dozens of figures and tables and still need to insert dozens more. I
number each like: Table CH#-TBL# (e.g. Table 10-3, would be the third table
in Chapter 10). The document so far is about 150 pages. I really don't want
to have to insert every caption manually, then re-select the text box, go
into the properties, and convert it to a frame. There must be an easier
way... right?

Related question: regardless of how a I get my captions to be frames, should
I then put the associated graphic (all the figures and tables are actually
graphics) inside the frame with the caption, or can I just leave that loose
as a pasted picture, each anchored to a nearby paragraph? If it makes any
difference, the vast majority of these graphics are paste-linked to another
file so they can be edited easily.

Some of the graphics I want to appear at specific places on the page (it
seems to work well for those to specify a position relative to the page),
but most I want to flow with the text (these seem to be more troublesome).

Any advice here would be very helpful. I'm quite frustrated with Word
bouncing my graphics to the edges of the page or other pages, breaking
widow-orphan settings, etc.

Thanks,
Colin