Documentation/How Tos/Inserting Pictures That are Reasonably Manageable
Checked for technical accuracy Mwaller 09:14, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
What is the best way to anchor pictures in a standard context like this? You have a paragraph or line of text describing something, and you might then say "....as shown in the following illustration." Then you have a picture on a line by itself. No wrapping or anything, very simple. Like this:
The horses at the Kalispell Dude Ranch are well-trained and gentle.
A very reliable way to do it is by anchoring as character. This treats the graphic like a letter. Which means you cannot drag it around, but that you can position it using the text alignment and indent features. And the less dragging, the less it is likely to be a little skittery.
Contents
To Use Anchor as Character
- Create a blank line for the picture by pressing Return after the text.
- Make sure that paragraph markers are visible: Check View > Nonprinting Characters.
- Choose Insert > Picture > From File and find the file (or just drag the picture in from the Gallery).
- Right-click on the picture and choose Anchor > As Character.
- If you want to continue writing below the picture, click to the right of the picture and press Return.
To Position the Picture Horizontally
- Click to the right of the picture (not on the picture).
- Use the Align Left, Centered, or Align Right icon on the formatting toolbar.
Troubleshooting: If the picture shows up about a quarter inch high, that is because the paragraph style applied has a height max on it. Nothing wrong with that, it is just not suitable for a style that is applied to the line a picture is on.
Click in the paragraph marker next to the picture and do one of the following:
- Choose Default from the dropdown style list.
- Or, choose Format > Paragraph, Indents&Spacing tab, and in the Line spacing section select Single.
To Position the Picture Vertically
To control whether the picture is vertically at the top, middle, or bottom of the blank line, right-click on it again and choose Alignment > Base At Top, Middle, or Bottom. You do not have to do this if you think the way it looks is fine.
If you want to make sure that the graphic automatically stays with the previous line of text describing it, select the text above the picture, choose Format > Paragraph, Text Flow tab, and select Keep With Next Paragraph.
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Be sure to do this only with the paragraphs that precede graphics or you will end up with unusual pagination.
You might decide to create a specific style that you use for paragraphs that precede graphics, and define that style with the Keep With Next Paragraph attribute. |
If the picture looks too crowded up against the text, click on the line, on the same line as the picture, and choose Format > Paragraph, Indents&Spacing tab. In the Spacing section in the middle, you can set spacing above and below the picture to space it so that it looks good.
Other Tips
- To create a caption that stays with the picture click on the picture and choose Insert > Caption.
The text, with a numbered field, will be inserted next to the picture. And the picture and the new caption will be encased in a frame. This way the caption stays with the picture.
- Here is what not to do. Right-click on the picture, choose Frame, and in the Type tab unmark the Follow text flow setting in the Position section.
That will give you this result, with the picture going outside the margin.File:Doc HowTo pict flow.pngPicture outside the type area
- In the Type tab you may also anchor the picture to paragraph. This is OK, as long as you do not unmark the Follow Text Flow option above. You can drag the picture around with Anchor to Paragraph. But anytime you have that amount of freedom, it is possible to accidentally put the graphic where it should not be.
See Also
This How To comes from Solveig Haugland's Blog
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