Re: Text wrapping around floating figures

I have generally been a die-hard LaTeX person, although my colleagues are
word users and I have to be able to exchange documents with them. I am
plenty proficient in word, so I can handle it (in fact having a LaTeX mindset
helps you to use word more effectively - particulary 2007 which I am very
happy with compared to the previous versions). Comparing to openoffice,
however is more realistic, which does handle the figure placement and
paragraph wrapping properly, and is a word processor at heart (although I
hear that it has a different fundamental representation of wat is a page and
what is text, which is probably why it works).

In any case, I was just hoping that someone has figured out some tricks to
do what I want a little better if not completely automatically.

Jon

"CyberTaz" wrote:

Nobody's going to try to prove you wrong, you've simply come to the
realization that MS Word is *not* & never has been a page layout program. It
is a word processor. The concessions MS has made over the years to
accommodate graphics in an environment where they are essentially 'foreign
bodies' has already gone beyond the critical point in the minds of many
users. As far as the 'competitive' products you cite, if you compare the
actual *word processing* features in them to what Word has to offer I think
you'll find the scale overwhelmingly tipped in favor of Word.

Assuming one is interested in professional output there is no substitute for
a good layout program if any volume of graphics & graphic control is needed.
My Daddy always harped on using the 'right tool for the job', and it
couldn't be more appropriate here :)

--
Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

"jluntz" <jluntz@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:CD23AEE6-3568-4E8A-AF1B-659AE88B6C38@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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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