Changing position of figure captions (legends)

[Roannais]

Hi, I'm using FrameMaker 9, and I have a question about changing the position of figure captions. Currently in all our docs, figure captions are placed above the figure (above the anchored frame) to which they apply, but the powers that be (much to my annoyance) have decreed that they should appear below the figure. Does anyone know a way of changing the position of all anchored frames in relation to the caption paragraph without having to do it manually for each one?

Thanks,

Jim

[Bob_Niland]

Use your favorite search engine,

restricted to site or domain: forums.adobe.com,

to search for: "framemaker" and "caption".

For example, this recent shaggy dog thread:
A way to label graphics?

http://forums.adobe.com/thread/781397?tstart=0

[Mike Wickham]

It probably could be done in FrameScript. I'm sure someone familiar with

FrameScript will pop in with a definitive answer.

Instead of setting up graphics and captions as two separate stand-alone

paragraphs, a preferable method is to create a one-cell table. Put the

graphic in the cell, turn on table titles and put the caption in the

title. This keeps the caption and graphic together, and gives you the

option of changing the title easily from above or below the graphic by

changing the table format.

Also note that there may be an important reason that the caption was

placed above the graphic. If there are cross-references to captions,

when you click the cross-reference in a PDF, and the caption is below

the graphic, the link jumps to the caption, displaying it at the top of

the page. The associated graphic, placed above, is left inconveniently

out of view. Readers usually want to see both the caption and associated

graphic. Placing captions above graphics makes PDF cross-references

display both.

[Roannais]

Hi Mike,

You're right about the cross-ref problem and the graphic being out of view, one of the reasons I'm annoyed at being asked to change the caption positions. And re the suggestion on using table cells for graphics, good idea, but I'll have to change thousands of graphics by hand if I go down that route... hopefully somebody will suggest a FrameScript solution as you say (though in fact I'd prefer to be told there's no easy way of solving the 'problem' of caption positioning, so I can reasonably refuse to change the current setup!).

Thanks for your help,

James

[Bob_Niland]

The fundamentally annoying thing is that Frame doesn't have "above current line" for anchored frames (AFs) or tables.

Unless you use some run-in or at-insertion-point dodge, or you only need one AF/TBL per column (which could use top-of-column), ya gotta have an anchoring line of some sort above the AF/TBL.

... and the caption is below the graphic, the link jumps to the caption, displaying it at the top of the page.

Hack:

• Use a tiny unique paragraph format for anchoring, with a to-be-invisible color View, say "Caption.Anchor", pt size 4, keep with next.
  
• Make the subject caption text the text of that Caption.Anchor paragraph.
• Anchor the frame or table to that.
• Put the visible caption paragraph on the next line (below the AF), or in the TBL, say, format "Caption.Visible", keep with previous.
  
• Make the text of Caption.Visible an Xref, <$paratex> (only) to Caption.Anchor.
• Have the TOC generate for Caption.Anchor. Make all hand-typed Xrefs use Caption.Anchor.

Page loss to an invisible anchoring line* is minimal.

The caption now appears to be below the frame.

Hypertext links go to the top of the AF or TBL.

_________

* This can cause slight topline mismatch in multi-column layouts.