Best way to keep graphic and caption with relevant body text

Forum|Forum|1 year ago
February 19, 2025
3 replies
391 views

I'm new to ID and am working on proposals. I need to place hundreds of pages of Word text that have embedded graphics and tables in them. The graphics and tables that are the width of the text (6.5" width) seem to place well and are anchored within the text, which is what I want, but I'm having trouble with graphics and tables that are smaller and need text wrapping. What's the best way to be able to have text wrap around them in ID but also have them anchored to the text they are relevant to. Once placed, when I select them and click on "Wrap around bounding box" in the Text Wrap window, nothing happens. If I can, I'd like to avoid stripping those graphics and tables out of the Word doc, saving them, and then placing them into ID. On a related note, graphics that are 11x17 seem to break the autotext flow; is there a better solution to that than removing the graphic via the Story Editor? Thanks so much!

Import and export

Joel Cherney

Community Expert

Everything that Robert said, pretty much, but if I understand the effect you're trying to create, you may have better luck using Custom anchored object positioning instead of Inline.

In order to be able to see what you're doing, make sure that you are in View -> Normal, not View -> Preview
Make sure your borders are visible in View -> Extras -> Show Frame Edges and Show Text Threads
Make sure your hidden characters are visible in Type -> Show Hidden Characters
Make sure that your anchored objects are not Inline but Custom. That can be manually edited by selecting the object and going to Object -> Anchored Objects -> Options, but it's better to set up a single Object Style for all anchored objects that need to be formatted in this way.

Once you have it all set up it looks like this:

If I can, I'd like to avoid stripping those graphics and tables out of the Word doc, saving them, and then placing them into ID.

If they're coming in as inline anchored objects when you place your Word file, you can set up an Object Style that changes them to Custom instead of Inline.

P

positive_joy4217Author

Participant

Thanks! I really appreciate the assistance!

Peter Spier

Community Expert

About text wrap and anchored objects...

First, text that occuers BEFORE the object never wraps around it.

Second, to get a rap to the object shape it must be set to Custom position, not Inline or Above Line.

You well most likely want to group your image and caption before anchoing them to gether as one object in the text.

P

positive_joy4217Author

Participant

Thanks so much!

Robert at ID-Tasker

Legend

Tables - you should import together with the text.

If you have them separately - copy&paste them "as text" - not into TextFrames that you then Anchor / InLine.

Images with captions - make them "on the side" - group - copy this group - put text cursor in the text where you want them to be located - paste.

Of course, all graphics should be placed using File / Place - Ctrl+D - not copy&pasted from external applications.

InDesign handles tables pretty well - you can also apply Table an Cell Styles - to make your life easier.

You can also use ObjectStyles and apply to Images and Captions.

And don't use any local formatting / overrides - always use Character / Paragraph / Object / Table / Cell Styles - even if it means creating a few extra, with minimal differences.