Problem with inserting caption Word 2007

  • Thread starter Thread starter Gordon
  • Start date Start date
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Gordon

I right-click on the image, choose "insert caption" and the dialog box
appears. So far so good. I then create a New Label and type in the word
"Kingsley" (without the quotes). I click OK, and the caption inserted under
the image says "Kingsley 1"! I DON'T WANT THE FIGURE 1 in it. There seems to
be NO way to delete that 1.

Why oh WHY does MS make Word TOTALLY UNINTUITIVE? WHY does it insert a 1
when I HAVEN'T TOLD IT TO?
And much more importantly, how do I get rid of it?
 
Gordon said:
I right-click on the image, choose "insert caption" and the dialog box
appears. So far so good. I then create a New Label and type in the word
"Kingsley" (without the quotes). I click OK, and the caption inserted under
the image says "Kingsley 1"! I DON'T WANT THE FIGURE 1 in it. There seems
to be NO way to delete that 1.

Why oh WHY does MS make Word TOTALLY UNINTUITIVE? WHY does it insert a 1
when I HAVEN'T TOLD IT TO?
And much more importantly, how do I get rid of it?
Click to expand...


It appears, from Word help, that the label is user-created - the number,
WORD INSERTS AUTOMATICALLY WHETHER THE USER WANTS IT OR NOT!

I find that STAGGERINGLY arrogant and wonder whether the Word "developers"
actually USE it in real life.....
 
The purpose of the Caption dialog box is to create *numbered* captions. If
you don't want that, just add the caption manually, by typing the text.
 
Stefan Blom said:
The purpose of the Caption dialog box is to create *numbered* captions.
Click to expand...

Which is another example of MS hijacking the accepted meaning of a word! The
definition EVERYONE ELSE uses is a "title" for a picture - a "numbered"
caption should be an OPTION, but NOT automatic and non-removable. How many
people waste time (I've wasted an hour or so this morning myself) trying to
do something that MS defines in an MS way and not what everyone else defines
it as? I repeat, arrogance in an enormous way.
If you don't want that, just add the caption manually, by typing the text.
Click to expand...

I'd thought of that, presumably you mean in a text box. However, if I then
move the picture, the text box doesn't move with it, unlike the caption.
 
Which is another example of MS hijacking the accepted meaning of a word!
The definition EVERYONE ELSE uses is a "title" for a picture - a
"numbered" caption should be an OPTION, but NOT automatic and
non-removable. How many people waste time (I've wasted an hour or so this
morning myself) trying to do something that MS defines in an MS way and
not what everyone else defines it as? I repeat, arrogance in an enormous
way.
Click to expand...

Well, English is not my native language, so I really cannot comment on this.

However, note that the people posting messages here do not work for
Microsoft.
I'd thought of that, presumably you mean in a text box. However, if I then
move the picture, the text box doesn't move with it, unlike the caption.
Click to expand...

Place the picture "In line with text," add the caption in a separate
paragraph, and then wrap a frame around both of them; this keeps them
together.

You'll find the Insert Frame command on the Developer tab: In the Controls
group, click the Legacy Tools button, and then click Insert Frame (under
"Legacy Forms").
 
Stefan Blom said:
in message news:[email protected]...

Well, English is not my native language, so I really cannot comment on
this.

However, note that the people posting messages here do not work for
Microsoft.
Click to expand...

interestingly, Open office has the same set up, with one MAJOR difference -
in the options for numbering, under Number format, there is an option for
NONE! How easy is that?
 
Gordon said:
interestingly, Open office has the same set up, with one MAJOR
difference - in the options for numbering, under Number format, there
is an option for NONE! How easy is that?
Click to expand...

If you prefer Open Office - use that!
or
Insert the Caption then remove the number field. It's not rocket science :(

--
<>>< ><<> ><<> <>>< ><<> <>>< <>><<>
Graham Mayor - Word MVP

My web site www.gmayor.com

<>>< ><<> ><<> <>>< ><<> <>>< <>><<>
 
Graham Mayor said:
Insert the Caption then remove the number field. It's not rocket science
:(
Click to expand...


And would you care to explain exactly how to do that? I've spent several
hours this morning just trying to do that. I can find NO explanation in
Office help either local or on-line OR in Google on how to do that.
 
A caption is just a text (your caption text) with a seq field added (the
number). Once inserted it can be edited in the document just like any other
text. Select the number (the seq field) and delete it.

Or insert all your captions with numbers and run the following macro to
remove all the numbers

Sub RemoveCaptionSeqNumbers()
ActiveWindow.View.ShowFieldCodes = True
With Selection.Find
.ClearFormatting
.Replacement.ClearFormatting
.Text = "^d SEQ"
.Style = "Caption"
.Replacement.Text = ""
.Forward = True
.Wrap = wdFindContinue
.Format = False
.MatchCase = False
.MatchWholeWord = False
.MatchWildcards = False
.MatchSoundsLike = False
.MatchAllWordForms = False
.Execute Replace:=wdReplaceAll
End With
ActiveWindow.View.ShowFieldCodes = False
End Sub

http://www.gmayor.com/installing_macro.htm


--
<>>< ><<> ><<> <>>< ><<> <>>< <>><<>
Graham Mayor - Word MVP

My web site www.gmayor.com

<>>< ><<> ><<> <>>< ><<> <>>< <>><<>
 
Graham Mayor said:
A caption is just a text (your caption text) with a seq field added (the
number). Once inserted it can be edited in the document just like any other
text. Select the number (the seq field) and delete it.
Click to expand...

Thank you. For some unknown reason, this morning, I couldn't delete it. Now
I can.
However I've decided to forget Captions, as whenever I add one ( I have 5
pictures on the page with a lot of gap between each), it moves the pictures
about in such a way that I can't seem to drag them back again to where they
were. Text boxes don't do that.

I still don't understand why MS should ASSUME that users want numbers in
their captions automatically in the first place...
 
Because the caption feature is intended to make it easy to apply sequential
numbered captions for figures and tables. The "label" is "Figure 1" or
"Table 1" or a custom label such as "Exhibit 1." What you type after the
label is the caption itself. If you don't need the captions labeled and
numbered then you can still apply the Caption paragraph style, which will
allow the captions to be picked up by a Table of Figures or List of
Illustrations or whatever.

Note, however, that the word "caption" has a number of meanings, differing
in various contexts; the one you may be most familiar with is newspaper
photos, but they are actually called "cutlines" in the trade (because the
halftone photos, when they were actually sort of engravings mounted on
wooden blocks inserted in blocks of hot type, were "cuts").

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.
 
Suzanne S. Barnhill said:
Because the caption feature is intended to make it easy to apply
sequential
numbered captions for figures and tables. The "label" is "Figure 1" or
"Table 1" or a custom label such as "Exhibit 1."
Click to expand...

That's absolutely fine - BUT, that function should be something the user
turns on IF they want it - it should NOT be automatic and by default. Or,
under Number formatting there should be an option for <none>. I wasted at
least an hour and a half of fruitless time yesterday trying to find how to
turn it off. There is NOTHING in Office online Help about the fact that you
can in fact just delete the field after having created the caption.
 
You have wasted more of your (and our) time whingeing about a function that
does what it is intended to do - rather than what you want it to do. This is
not how it works, nor ever has in Word - get over it!
 
Graham said:
You have wasted more of your (and our) time whingeing about a function that
does what it is intended to do - rather than what you want it to do. This is
not how it works, nor ever has in Word - get over it!
Click to expand...

I repeat - arrogance of MS. It is NOT how "ORDINARY" users define a
caption. And WHY is there nothing in help to say that the field CAN be
deleted?
 
Note that if you remove the SEQ fields, you won't be able to build a table
of figures based on the chosen caption label (because the TOC field actually
looks for the SEQ fields), but you can work around this by building the TOF
on a particular style instead.

--
Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP


in message
 
Gordon said:
I repeat - arrogance of MS. It is NOT how "ORDINARY" users define a
caption. And WHY is there nothing in help to say that the field CAN be
deleted?
Click to expand...

*Any* text or field inserted in a document can be deleted!
 
The Caption feature is intended for technical and academic documents, the
writers of which *do* understand "caption" in this sense. There is no need
whatsoever to use the Caption feature to create what is merely an ordinary
text paragraph. I'm surprised that you even wanted to use it that way.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.
 
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