Double Photo Column

Question

Double Photo Column

Anonymous

Hello Once Again,

  I am slowly getting to the bottom of my questions barrel I think. Here is the latest one. I have gotten pretty proficient at placing and resizing pictures on my documents but there is a new wrinkle that has popped up. I want to have the pictures on the same page as the text to which they refer so that the reader doesn't have to keep flipping back and forth to match them up. This hasn't been a problem so far as the text about a certain item or two has always been long enough that the picture or pictures can be placed on the same page. However, I have now run into the problem of multiple references on a single page, sometimes as many as 8-10, and I can't fit all of the requisite pictures in the text without going over to another non-facing page. What I now need to learn how to do is to create a facing page with a double column of captioned pictures that reflect back to the text on the opposite page, using the standard page margins in my document, and not using the Enter key to get space between the title page and the pictures and between each picture in the column. There would be no text on this page other than the title and the captions.

                                                                                        TITLE OF PICTURE PAGE

                         Image                                                                                                                                  Image

                        Image                                                                                                                                    Image

                       Image                                                                                                                                     Image

                      Image                                                                                                                                       Image

Note that the space between the images would not be as shown above as I would size them so that tey would appear closer together. I am assuming also that the standard captioning techniques would apply to each image. I have consulted Gookin's book and read the columns section but the information there only applies to text. As always any help that can be provided would be most greatfully appreciated.

                    Wayne Hinton

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5 answers

Answer 1

The best method of placing pictures exactly where you want them is to insert a table and size its cells properly.

For the layout in your example, I would recommend a three-column table, with a narrow column in the center to separate the pictures on either side of it. Insert a picture in each cell, with "in line with text" wrapping. You can place a caption in a paragraph in the same cell with its picture.

An added feature of a table is that if you set it to have fixed column widths, then any picture you paste into a cell will automatically be sized to fit within that width (assuming the picture's original size is greater than the column width).

Bonus hint: You can quickly turn off all the table borders with the shortcut Ctrl+Alt+U. When you do that, it's a good idea to turn on the View Gridlines button on the Table Layout ribbon so you can see where the cells are; the gridlines won't print.

Answer 2

I'm sorry I missed seeing your previous couple of posts; I probably could have saved you some time and frustration.

First a word about the automatic sizing of pictures in tables: When you set a table's AutoFit to "Fixed Column Width", and then you paste a picture into one of its cells (assuming the picture's original width is larger than the cell's width), Word will shrink the picture to the width of the cell (minus the cell's left and right margins). The resizing will be done while retaining the picture's aspect ratio to prevent distortion, so the cell's height must expand to fit the picture's new height.

You can, if you wish, set a fixed height for one or more rows of the table. You do that by selecting the row(s), right-clicking and choosing Table Properties, and going to the Row tab of the Properties dialog to specify the height and choosing "Exactly" in the right-hand dropdown.

The result of setting an exact row height after a picture was already in place is that the picture will be cut off at the bottom. (The rest of the picture is still there, but it can't be shown.) This is not the same as cropping the picture, which removes the extra part.

The result of setting an exact row height before a picture is inserted is that the picture's height will be sized to fit the row, and its width will be whatever preserves the aspect ratio.

I doubt that any of this is the effect you're looking for, so it's best not to rely on automatic resizing. The proper way to handle your requirements is to edit, crop, and resize each picture in a real graphics program before you insert it into the Word table. There are many such programs, ranging from the Paint program that comes with Windows, to the free program IrfanView (https://www.irfanview.com/ ), to professional-quality paid programs such as PhotoShop or PhotoShop Elements.

For removing the lines (cell borders), Ctrl+Alt+U should work reliably as long as the cursor is inside the table. Another way to do it is to select the whole table, click the bottom part of the Borders button on the Table Design ribbon, and click "No Border".

Answer 3

Anonymous

I just tried the Ctrl+Alt+U shortcut again on another test and this time the cell lines disappeared. Go figure.

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Answer 4

I thought this extra information might help. I measured the images I want to use and I want to insert them into a cell 3 inches wide by 1.5 inches high in two columns with 4 rows using standard margins. How would I set this up? There's a way to set the image length by using fixed column width. How about setting a fixed column height? Basically I want to determine the size of the individual cells. Also what do I need to do to get the auto resize feature to work so I don't have to manually crop them myself, which is basically guesswork and if I crop too much there's no way to get it back. I also want to have this picture page facing a text page to which the pictures refer, so I will want the pagination to continue. For example if the text page is 22 I would want the facing picture page to be 23. I played around with a single column tabel of four rows and got that adjusted the way I wanted, but when I printed out the test page the table's cell lines remained. I tried removing them by using the Ctrl+Alt+U shortcut but they didn't drop out. How do I remove the cell lines from the table once I am satisfied? Thank you

     Wayne Hinton

Answer 5

Hi Jay,

   Thanks for the reply. It came quickly and I haven't responded in kind as I was distracted working on another project but I finally sat down and tried to follow your directions. I had some trouble at first but finally figured out that the cells you were talking about were deliniated by the lines that appeared when you set up the Table. So, click Insert, the click Insert Table and the menu appears. I played around with the default settings and found how to drop ictures in one of the boxes. I used three colums as you advised and arbitrarily used 5 rows since this was just for practise. No problems with the first picture in the left hand column, but when I dropped the second one in the right hand column it didn't fit. I went to my picture library and experimented with trimming some of the width and height off the image and got it to fit okay, although I needed a bit of fine turning with the sizing dots to get an exact match. I then captioned each picture without a problem. So far so good. But when I tried putting images in the next several cells they didn't seem to fit as well, and with some the images were so small that I couldn't enlarge them to match the facing picture without intruding into the next cell. You said something in the previous post that pictures could be made to automatically resize themselves if fixed column widths have been set up. My experimenting has been done on the Fixed Column With (Auto) setting. The latter can be changed to a variety of different widths with the up and down arrows but when I tried experimenting with them it didn't seem to help. And is there a Fixed Column Height as well? Ialso tried playing around with selecting AutoFit to Content and AutoFit to Window without getting much in the way of results. A lot of my images are of various heights and widths because they have come from various sources. What I need is a way to have two columns of pictures 5 or 6 rows deep with all of the images in the individual cells the same size. If you could sort this out for me I would be most appreciative. Thank you.

Wayne Hinton

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Double Photo Column

5 answers