Text Wrapping in Floating Figures

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jluntz - 27 Jul 2006 22:16 GMT

I think I have been coming accross a typesetting limitation in word in pretty
much every version including the 2007 Beta having to do with the wrapping of
text around a floating figure.

If you make a document with several paragraphs taking up, say, 3/4 of the
first page, then insert a picture that is just less than 1/4 of a page tall
that is positioned to appear, say, at the bottom of a page (or anything else,
not inline with the text), anchored with a locked anchor to the last
paragraph, it will appear at the bottom of the next page. That's fine.

The problem is that if you add a little to the text in some earlier
paragraph such that there is no longer room on the page, not only does the
figure move to the next page, but so does the whole anchoring paragraph (word
REQUIRES that the anchor is on the same page as the figure). This is not ok.
Generally, in an academic paper, you want a figure to appear either on the
page or as soon as possible AFTER it's first reference in the text.
Therefore, you would want to lock the anchor with the referencing paragraph
and let word handle the placement on the current page (if there is room) or
the next page. This is the way Latex does it and also the way openoffice
does, and I really would like word to do it too.

In word, the options are either to position the figure manually, which means
every time you make some changes you have to change all the positions of all
the figures in the document, or leave blank space at the bottom of the page
where the referenceing paragraph SHOULD have gone.

There is a corollary formatting problem, that is if you do re-anchor and
position the figure manually, but want it to appear at the top of the next
page, and the previous page breaks in the middle of a paragraph, you cannot
have the broken paragraph flow around the figure. You could break the
paragraph manually, but if you are doing left and right justification, the
last line of the manually broken paragraph does not justify. Short of
inserting extra spaces between words on that last line, there is no way I can
see to make that happen. I feel that this is a fundamental limitation in
word although I'd be happy to be proven wrong.

Thanks,
Jon

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Stefan Blom - 28 Jul 2006 09:58 GMT

I think you'd have to position your figures after document editing is
complete. Anchor figures to the appropriate paragraphs, and set the
desired placement options.

Note that if you have to split a justified paragraph, you can insert a
line break (press Shift+Enter) at the end of it; that way, the last
line of the paragraph will extend to the right margin (assuming that
the "Don't expand character spaces on the line ending Shift+Return"
option is cleared, in Tools | Options, Compatibility tab).

Signature

Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP

> I think I have been coming accross a typesetting limitation in word in pretty
> much every version including the 2007 Beta having to do with the wrapping of
[quoted text clipped - 34 lines]
> Thanks,
> Jon

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jluntz - 30 Jul 2006 21:44 GMT

Postponing unitl we're done is what we need to do (and have been doing),
although if you're working on a paper that has publication page limits, you
basically have to do all the positioning work, see what the length is, edit
some things out, do all the positioning work again, etc. It's very tedious.

The "Don't expand character spaces on the line ending Shift+Return" tip is
very helpful. We rarely wind up shift-returning othe paragraphs (although if
we did want to do that in the same document, I think we'd be stuck).

Jon

> I think you'd have to position your figures after document editing is
> complete. Anchor figures to the appropriate paragraphs, and set the
[quoted text clipped - 68 lines]
> > Thanks,
> > Jon

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Suzanne S. Barnhill - 30 Jul 2006 22:16 GMT

Not necessarily. You can let Word justify lines ending in a line break and
then thwart it for any given line by ending the line with a tab character
before the line break.

There are two more tips that complete the illusion of a continuous paragraph
wrapped around a full-page graphic:

1. If, after inserting the line break at the end of the last line that fits
on the preceding page, your new empty line (containing only a paragraph
mark) doesn't fit (as is likely), you can start by formatting it as 1 point.
If even that doesn't suffice, format it as Hidden.

2. If your paragraphs begin with a first-line indent, you'll need an
unindented style to apply to the first paragraph on the page following the
full-page graphic, to make it look like a continuation of the paragraph that
ended on the preceding page. My local newspaper hasn't figured this out:
they make up pages with Word and consequently don't have any automatic way
to "jump" articles to a back page (theoretically, linked text boxes could be
used, but I guess they don't want to fool with that hassle). The "jump"
always begins with a first-line indent, usually in the middle of a
paragraph.

Signature

Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org
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> Postponing unitl we're done is what we need to do (and have been doing),
> although if you're working on a paper that has publication page limits, you
[quoted text clipped - 79 lines]
> > > Thanks,
> > > Jon

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