Pictures inside frames - Anchor To Frame

[John Kaufmann]

I tried this question six weeks ago and got no answer, but with the
indulgence of the list I'd like to try it again, in the hope that
someone might have a new thought about it:

According to the OO documentation ("Working with Graphics"), any picture
inside a frame should have "To Frame" among its Anchor options.  In a
document I wrote are ~30 pictures inside frames - but only half of them
have the "Anchor.. To Frame" option.  After much study, I'm still unable
to see the difference between those that have and those that do not have
the option.  Even pictures side by side can be different.  Can anyone
tell me what to look for to normalize this?

And - bonus question - since Writer believes that a picture with caption
is lost without a frame (and thus supplies one automatically), why would
the picture ever *not* be anchored to the frame?

John

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[Andy-264]

John Kaufmann wrote:

> I tried this question six weeks ago and got no answer, but with the
> indulgence of the list I'd like to try it again, in the hope that
> someone might have a new thought about it:
>
> According to the OO documentation ("Working with Graphics"), any picture
> inside a frame should have "To Frame" among its Anchor options.  In a
> document I wrote are ~30 pictures inside frames - but only half of them
> have the "Anchor.. To Frame" option.  After much study, I'm still unable
> to see the difference between those that have and those that do not have
> the option.  Even pictures side by side can be different.  Can anyone
> tell me what to look for to normalize this?
>
> And - bonus question - since Writer believes that a picture with caption
> is lost without a frame (and thus supplies one automatically), why would
> the picture ever *not* be anchored to the frame?
>
> John

John,

If you can send me a "page" that shows what your talking about I will
see if I can help.

--
Andy Brown


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[pitonyak]

I feel like I see this question off and on...

On 11/05/2009 02:26 PM, John Kaufmann wrote:
> According to the OO documentation ("Working with Graphics"), any
> picture inside a frame should have "To Frame" among its Anchor options.

That sounds WRONG. I can think of no particular reason that an image
inside of a frame should be anchored to the frame. I assume, however,
that it must be anchored either to the frame, or to something in that
frame. If not, well, then it is not really in the frame. Not to split
hairs, but one might argue that an image anchored to a frame might
actually exist outside the frame (but I might argue that for any anchor
type).

I have certainly anchored images as a character inside of a frame.

> In a document I wrote are ~30 pictures inside frames - but only half
> of them have the "Anchor.. To Frame" option.  After much study, I'm
> still unable to see the difference between those that have and those
> that do not have the option.  Even pictures side by side can be
> different.  Can anyone tell me what to look for to normalize this?

I suppose that it depends on how the image ended up inside of a specific
frame.

> And - bonus question - since Writer believes that a picture with
> caption is lost without a frame (and thus supplies one automatically),
> why would the picture ever *not* be anchored to the frame?

I would say that the previous statement is not entirely true either.
First, look at why writer may choose to do it this way...

You tell OOo to caption an image. The intent is to keep the image with
the caption. If both are in the same frame, then they will stay
together, kind of like throwing two items into a box together. So, OOo
places an image into a frame and then places the caption into the frame
with the image.

There are other advantages to this, that can only be done by using
something like a frame. For example, what if I want text to flow around
an image and its caption? Well, I can flow text around a frame, and if
the frame contains the image and the caption then you are done.

I usually embed my images as a character on a line with nothing else. I
use a paragraph style that is configured to stay with the next
paragraph, which contains the caption.

I place the caption below the image. THis contains a field (for the
caption number) and text. I use a specific paragraph style for the caption.

There are certain benefits to this, but the ability to drag the image
and caption around in a frame is not one of them. I would ramble on more
about this, but I am hours late for going to sleep.

--
Andrew Pitonyak
My Macro Document: http://www.pitonyak.org/AndrewMacro.odt
My Book: http://www.hentzenwerke.com/catalog/oome.htm
Info:  http://www.pitonyak.org/oo.php
See Also: http://documentation.openoffice.org/HOW_TO/index.html


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[John Kaufmann]

Hi Andrew,

In a message dated 2009.11.06 02:44 -0500, Andrew Douglas Pitonyak wrote:

> I feel like I see this question off and on...

:-) !

>> According to the OO documentation ("Working with Graphics"), any
>> picture inside a frame should have "To Frame" among its Anchor options.
>
> That sounds WRONG.

Well, I was only quoting the documentation, which was actually /right/ -
for /half/ the pictures in my document. [How bizarre is that?! Bizarre
enough to post a question about. ;-) ]

> I can think of no particular reason that an image inside of a frame
> should be anchored to the frame. I assume, however, that it must be
> anchored either to the frame, or to something in that frame. If not,
> well, then it is not really in the frame.

OK... but then look at what happens:
  1. Insert picture.
  2. Add caption, which causes:
  3. Automatically add frame, and now the possible picture anchors are:
     {To Page | To Paragraph | To Character | As Character | To Frame} -
     except that the "To Frame" option only happens half the time!


> Not to split hairs, but one might argue that an image anchored to a
> frame might actually exist outside the frame (but I might argue that
> for any anchor type).

Did we just step through the Looking Glass? ;-)

Seriously: initially I found it strange that Writer did not treat
"Caption" as an inherent spatially-connected attribute of "Picture", but
instead creates a frame around picture + caption when the caption is
made.  However, one can then anchor the picture to the page or a
paragraph - and take it completely out of the frame!  Maybe it shows my
limited imagination, but I think if the frame is the tool by which
Writer spatially associates picture to caption, then the picture, like
the caption, must be anchored to the frame.  Anything else strikes me as
perverse.

> ...
> I usually embed my images as a character on a line with nothing else.
> I use a paragraph style that is configured to stay with the next
> paragraph, which contains the caption.
>
> I place the caption below the image. THis contains a field (for the
> caption number) and text. I use a specific paragraph style for the
> caption.
>
> There are certain benefits to this, but the ability to drag the image
>  and caption around in a frame is not one of them. I would ramble on
> more about this, but I am hours late for going to sleep.

;-)  Me too.  But thanks for an interesting reply!

John

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[Thomas E Webb]

> I tried this question six weeks ago and got no answer, but with the
> indulgence of the list I'd like to try it again, in the hope that
> someone might have a new thought about it:
>
> According to the OO documentation ("Working with Graphics"), any picture
> inside a frame should have "To Frame" among its Anchor options.  In a
> document I wrote are ~30 pictures inside frames - but only half of them
> have the "Anchor.. To Frame" option.  After much study, I'm still unable
> to see the difference between those that have and those that do not have
> the option.  Even pictures side by side can be different.  Can anyone
> tell me what to look for to normalize this?
>
> And - bonus question - since Writer believes that a picture with caption
> is lost without a frame (and thus supplies one automatically), why would
> the picture ever *not* be anchored to the frame?
>
> John
>

John:

In the first tab, near the bottom of the picture properties, check to see
what the left horizontal position increment to the frame is.  I have
found in most cases, but not all, that if it is zero or negative (outside
the frame) it will not show the frame anchor option.  This assumes that
you do not have the picture and its frame inside another frame.

TomW



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[TomW-3]

John Kaufmann wrote:

> I tried this question six weeks ago and got no answer, but with the
> indulgence of the list I'd like to try it again, in the hope that
> someone might have a new thought about it:
>
> According to the OO documentation ("Working with Graphics"), any
> picture inside a frame should have "To Frame" among its Anchor
> options.  In a document I wrote are ~30 pictures inside frames - but
> only half of them have the "Anchor.. To Frame" option.  After much
> study, I'm still unable to see the difference between those that have
> and those that do not have the option.  Even pictures side by side can
> be different.  Can anyone tell me what to look for to normalize this?
>
> And - bonus question - since Writer believes that a picture with
> caption is lost without a frame (and thus supplies one automatically),
> why would the picture ever *not* be anchored to the frame?
>
> John
>

John:

Open the properties of the picture and in the first tab, "type', near
the bottom, check what the left horizontal position value is.  I have
found ,in most cases, that if the value is 0 or negative (outside the
frame), the 'anchor to frame' option is missing.   In cases where it is
zero or negative. and I still have the 'anchor to frame' option, if I
un-check the size options, 'relative' and/or 'ratio', this will  remove
the 'anchor to frame' option.  I hope I am clear on this.  Earlier, I
tried sending a response to this from work using webmail, but it seems
to be lost in the 'ether'net zone, so if a near duplicate of this
message eventually shows up, my apologies.

TomW

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[Andy-264]

John,

In going over your file I found out several things.

1:  That at least one, the first one, had two frames.  That one had the
"To Frame" option available for Anchor.

2:  The second graphic did not have any frame but some how had a "caption".

3:  Several, including the first, had the "Frame" anchored to the left
margin but the graphic was located in in different places across the page.

4:  Thanks to the comment from TomW, I found out the strangest thing.
Double clicking on the graphic to get the properties, most of the ones
with the "To Frame" option have the 'Horizontal' setting 'From Left'.
Changing this to 'Left' and closing the properties window removed the
"To Frame" option.  Changing the 'Horizontal' back did not have the
reverse effect though.

5:  For at least the first graphic, the 'Horizontal' setting 'Right'.
Changing the 'Horizontal' setting has no effect on the "To Frame"
option.  Where this is because of the two frames I do not know.

6:  The real kicker, so far, is that I have not found anyone that can
give me any reason for the issue we are discussing.  While researching
this I was looking over the "Working with Graphics" doc you referred to,
in the process I found two graphics that fit this issue.  The difference
being that both have the same settings, 'Horizontal' setting 'Center'.
Changing the 'Horizontal' setting then closing the property window
removes the "To Frame" option.

I have tried the Issue Tracker, other available forums, and the
OpenOffice.org web site and found nothing related to this issue.  I wll
keep looking and will report back if I find anything else related.

--
Andy Brown


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[John Kaufmann]

Hi Tom,

In a message dated 2009.11.06 17:28 -0500, TomW wrote:

>> According to the OO documentation ("Working with Graphics"), any
>> picture inside a frame should have "To Frame" among its Anchor
>> options.  In a document I wrote are ~30 pictures inside frames - but
>> only half of them have the "Anchor.. To Frame" option.  After much
>> study, I'm still unable to see the difference between those that have
>> and those that do not have the option. ...
>
> Open the properties of the picture and in the first tab, "type', near
> the bottom, check what the left horizontal position value is.

"left horizontal position" is perhaps a little ambiguous: The Horizontal
Position attribute takes one of four position states
{"Left"|"Right"|"Center"|"From left"}, defined over one of eight domains
   { "Paragraph area"         |  "Paragraph text area"
     "Left paragraph border"  |  "Right paragraph border"
     "Left page border"       |  "Right page border"
     "Entire page"            |  "Page text area" }.

Of those four position states, only "From left" takes a value
{negative|0|positive}. The other states {Left|Center|Right} are all
defined by the domain {Paragraph|Page} limits
{Area{All|Text}|Border{Left|Right}} - thus the numeric position value is
meaningless - and *none* of those states correlates with the "To Frame"
anchor.  So your point, while incomplete, leads us close to the problem:
the anchor "To Frame" is incompatible with some Position attributes.

Now, why is that?  To answer that question, we may need to answer the
"bonus question" that I asked in the original post:
>> since Writer believes that a picture with caption is lost without a
>> frame (and thus supplies one automatically), why would the picture
>> ever *not* be anchored to the frame?

Thanks to your contribution, I now have some thoughts on that question -
but I think it's best to continue them in reply to Andy's post, which
moves this on a little further.  So we'll take that up in that post.


> I have found ,in most cases, that if the value is 0 or negative
> (outside the frame), the 'anchor to frame' option is missing.  In
> cases where it is zero or negative. and I still have the 'anchor to
> frame' option, if I un-check the size options, 'relative' and/or
> 'ratio', this will  remove the 'anchor to frame' option.  I hope I
> am clear on this.

Yes, perfectly clear on the mechanics - as long as we understand that
"the value" means "the value *From left*".  However, of course it's not
so clear on the theory - the design model. [From your tone, I /think/
you would agree with that.]  Again, I think it's best to take up /that/
question in the context of Andy's post.

Thanks for getting this started toward answers.

John

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[John Kaufmann]

Hi Andy,

First, I want to thank you for taking the time to study my example.

In a message dated 2009.11.06 21:47 -0500, Andy wrote:

> In going over your file I found out several things.
>
> 1:  That at least one, the first one, had two frames.  That one had the
> "To Frame" option available for Anchor.

Nice catch on the two frames!  Now that you mention that, I think that
must have happened when, while attempting to edit (as opposed to insert)
the caption, I hit "Caption" in the context menu - but it happened to be
the context menu for the frame rather than for the picture.  The result
must have been that Writer helpfully provided yet another (outer) frame
to enclose the first frame and caption, just as the first frame was
automatically provided to enclose the picture and its caption. [Now
then: It seems that Writer should provide a way to simple way to remove
excess frames without removing their contents, shouldn't it?]

IAC, not only does the picture have a "To Frame" anchor option (where
"To Frame" refers to the inner frame), but the inner frame also has a
"To Frame" anchor option (where "To Frame" refers to the outer frame).


> 2:  The second graphic did not have any frame but some how had a "caption".

Yeah, isn't that neat? ;-) I could not figure out that, either, but
since then have been studying Andrew Pitonyak's macro to remove frames
from pictures, to try to understand how that might have happened.


> 3:  Several, including the first, had the "Frame" anchored to the left
> margin but the graphic was located in in different places across the page.

Well, for the first picture, the *inner* frame (that I did not realize
was there) is anchored Left(Paragraph_area), while the *outer* frame
(that I knew about) is anchored Right(Paragraph_area).  Obviously the
outer frame controls placement; apparently the inner frame does nothing.


> 4:  Thanks to the comment from TomW, I found out the strangest thing.
> Double clicking on the graphic to get the properties, most of the ones
> with the "To Frame" option have the 'Horizontal' setting 'From Left'.
> Changing this to 'Left' and closing the properties window removed the
> "To Frame" option.  Changing the 'Horizontal' back did not have the
> reverse effect though.

Yes! That setting is state-dependent - *not* a good thing.  The only way
to restore the "To Frame" option is to Undo back to that point (or wipe
it out and start over).  That is clearly a bug [but at least now I have
some thoughts about it, below] - and unfortunately not a small one.


> 5:  For at least the first graphic, the 'Horizontal' setting 'Right'.
> Changing the 'Horizontal' setting has no effect on the "To Frame"
> option.  Where this is because of the two frames I do not know.

See my comment above about the inner and outer frames, of which only the
outer has effect.


> 6:  The real kicker, so far, is that I have not found anyone that can
> give me any reason for the issue we are discussing.  While researching
> this I was looking over the "Working with Graphics" doc you referred to,
> in the process I found two graphics that fit this issue.  The difference
> being that both have the same settings, 'Horizontal' setting 'Center'.
> Changing the 'Horizontal' setting then closing the property window
> removes the "To Frame" option.

You mean "two graphics" in my paper? If so, which ones? - "fit this
issue" how?

IAC, I think the reason is elusive because the design is not well
reasoned, and the lack of conceptual clarity has spawned bugs.  I don't
blame the Writer Guide for not picking up on that, because it's a bigger
issue than documentation.

I now realize that to begin the analysis we have to return to what, in
my original post, I called the "bonus question":
>> since Writer believes that a picture with caption is lost without a
>> frame (and thus supplies one automatically), why would the picture
>> ever *not* be anchored to the frame?
Or, put another way: Once Writer puts a frame around picture and caption
to keep them together, why doesn't the focus of "Anchor" move completely
from the picture to the frame?

That's the first question that the conceptual design seems to not ask,
let alone answer.
The next basic question is about the anchor domain, once you get outside
the frame.  Those eight choices:

   { "Paragraph area"         |  "Paragraph text area"
     "Left paragraph border"  |  "Right paragraph border"
     "Left page border"       |  "Right page border"
     "Entire page"            |  "Page text area" }.
[expressed more compactly as
{Paragraph|Page}{Area{All|Text}|Border{Left|Right}}]

have a basic conceptual flaw: "Area" is 2-dimensional (or, within a
horizontal line, 1-dimensional), while "Border" is 1-dimensional (or,
within a horizontal line, 0-dimensional).  "Border" is not an
independent entity from "Area"; on the contrary, "Paragraph area" is
bounded by the paragraph borders, and "Page area" is bounded by the page
borders.  because the selection set is not orthogonal, the model doesn't
compute; it runs into problems.

So we should begin by eliminating something.  I would remove the
"border" domain options, reducing the selection domains to "Page" and
"Paragraph" (eliminating the word "area", which is conceptually
redundant).  Then we could make design sense of the four position states
{"Left"|"Right"|"Center"|"From left"}, and in the process make this
anchoring business less buggy and more comprehensible.

Thanks again for thinking about this.  Now, how do we get it corrected?...

John

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[Barbara Duprey]

> John Kaufmann wrote:
>> I tried this question six weeks ago and got no answer, but with the
>> indulgence of the list I'd like to try it again, in the hope that
>> someone might have a new thought about it:
>>
>> According to the OO documentation ("Working with Graphics"), any
>> picture inside a frame should have "To Frame" among its Anchor
>> options.  In a document I wrote are ~30 pictures inside frames - but
>> only half of them have the "Anchor.. To Frame" option.  After much
>> study, I'm still unable to see the difference between those that have
>> and those that do not have the option.  Even pictures side by side
>> can be different.  Can anyone tell me what to look for to normalize
>> this?
>>
>> And - bonus question - since Writer believes that a picture with
>> caption is lost without a frame (and thus supplies one
>> automatically), why would the picture ever *not* be anchored to the
>> frame?
>>
>> John
>>
> John:
>
> Open the properties of the picture and in the first tab, "type', near
> the bottom, check what the left horizontal position value is.  I have
> found ,in most cases, that if the value is 0 or negative (outside the
> frame), the 'anchor to frame' option is missing.   In cases where it
> is zero or negative. and I still have the 'anchor to frame' option, if
> I un-check the size options, 'relative' and/or 'ratio', this will  
> remove the 'anchor to frame' option.  I hope I am clear on this.  
> Earlier, I tried sending a response to this from work using webmail,
> but it seems to be lost in the 'ether'net zone, so if a near duplicate
> of this message eventually shows up, my apologies.
>
> TomW

Tom, if the list doesn't see your post as coming from tomwebb@...
it will be routed through the moderator (as if you were not subscribed),
and that introduces a delay of several hours or days.  Glad to get this
explanation, it's good to know.

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[Andy-264]

John Kaufmann wrote:
> Hi Andy,
>
> First, I want to thank you for taking the time to study my example.

Your welcome.  Seeing the actual file makes it easer for me than trying
  to visualize what someone is talking about.

>> 1:  That at least one, the first one, had two frames.  That one had
>> the "To Frame" option available for Anchor.
>
> Nice catch on the two frames!  Now that you mention that, I think that
> must have happened when, while attempting to edit (as opposed to insert)
> the caption, I hit "Caption" in the context menu - but it happened to be
> the context menu for the frame rather than for the picture.  The result
> must have been that Writer helpfully provided yet another (outer) frame
> to enclose the first frame and caption, just as the first frame was
> automatically provided to enclose the picture and its caption. [Now
> then: It seems that Writer should provide a way to simple way to remove
> excess frames without removing their contents, shouldn't it?]
> IAC, not only does the picture have a "To Frame" anchor option (where
> "To Frame" refers to the inner frame), but the inner frame also has a
> "To Frame" anchor option (where "To Frame" refers to the outer frame).

Changing the inter frame anchor to other then "From Left" also removes
the "To Frame" option for the graphic.

>> 2:  The second graphic did not have any frame but some how had a
>> "caption".
>
> Yeah, isn't that neat? ;-) I could not figure out that, either, but
> since then have been studying Andrew Pitonyak's macro to remove frames
> from pictures, to try to understand how that might have happened.

I went back and reread Andrew's post.  It seems that a bug in Writer is
why the Documentation Project uses the "As Character" anchor in the
Users Guides.

>> 5:  For at least the first graphic, the 'Horizontal' setting 'Right'.
>> Changing the 'Horizontal' setting has no effect on the "To Frame"
>> option.  Where this is because of the two frames I do not know.
>
> See my comment above about the inner and outer frames, of which only the
> outer has effect.

See above.

>> 6:  The real kicker, so far, is that I have not found anyone that can
>> give me any reason for the issue we are discussing.  While researching
>> this I was looking over the "Working with Graphics" doc you referred
>> to, in the process I found two graphics that fit this issue.  The
>> difference being that both have the same settings, 'Horizontal'
>> setting 'Center'. Changing the 'Horizontal' setting then closing the
>> property window removes the "To Frame" option.
>
> You mean "two graphics" in my paper? If so, which ones? - "fit this
> issue" how?

No the ones I am talking about are in the "Working with Graphics" guide.
  Figures 12 and 13 have the same settings, 'Horizontal' = 'Center' to
'Paragraph Area'.  Yet 12 does not have the "To Frame" option and 13 does.

> IAC, I think the reason is elusive because the design is not well
> reasoned, and the lack of conceptual clarity has spawned bugs.  I don't
> blame the Writer Guide for not picking up on that, because it's a bigger
> issue than documentation.

Not being a programmer I can not say more than there seems to be a bug.

> I now realize that to begin the analysis we have to return to what, in
> my original post, I called the "bonus question":
>>> since Writer believes that a picture with caption is lost without a
>>> frame (and thus supplies one automatically), why would the picture
>>> ever *not* be anchored to the frame?
> Or, put another way: Once Writer puts a frame around picture and caption
> to keep them together, why doesn't the focus of "Anchor" move completely
> from the picture to the frame?
>
> That's the first question that the conceptual design seems to not ask,
> let alone answer.
> The next basic question is about the anchor domain, once you get outside
> the frame.  Those eight choices:

Not being a programmer and not knowing how the design was done I can not
explain the "problem" nor offer any corrections.

> Thanks again for thinking about this.  Now, how do we get it corrected?...

I have tried to find any current issues on this but as yet not found any
thing.  I will keep looking as I have time but not sure exactly what to
search for.

The problem as I see it is that "Any graphic in a frame should have the
'To Frame' option."

--
Andy Brown
La Mesa, CA  91942
www.the-martin-byrd.net/openoffice.org.html
OpenOffice.org Community Distributor
CD/OEM Distribution Project member
Documentation Project member
Marketing Project member
User Experience Project member

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[John Kaufmann]

Andy,

Since we are on the same page in our findings, I won't bother with
point-by-point agreement, but the final conclusion does bear some comment:

In a message dated 2009.11.07 10:45 -0500, Andy wrote:

> The problem as I see it is that "Any graphic in a frame should have the
> 'To Frame' option."

Yes, so the Writer Guide says - and I'm sure that comes from the fact
that the graphic in the frame has /any/ anchor options, so it seemed
reasonable to the designers that anchoring to the frame must be at least
one of the options.  But I have come to think that is the initial
conceptual flaw that spawns the other problems.  I keep coming back to
what I originally called the "bonus question":  Since Writer
automatically encloses a picture with caption inside a frame, why would
the picture ever *not* be anchored to the frame?  Put another way: Once
Writer puts a frame around picture and caption to keep them together,
why doesn't the focus of "Anchor" move completely from the picture to
the frame?

John

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[Joe Smith-4]

On 11/07/2009 03:55 AM, John Kaufmann wrote:
> ... "Border" is not an independent
> entity from "Area"; on the contrary, "Paragraph area" is bounded by the
> paragraph borders, and "Page area" is bounded by the page borders.
> because the selection set is not orthogonal, the model doesn't compute;
> it runs into problems.

It is always difficult to come up with short, often one word, labels for
the complex concepts manipulated by software applications. Writer (and
OOo in general) suffers from this difficulty in many places; this is one
of them--to me at least.

The 'border' here is not really a border in the sense most people would
get from seeing the word. Instead, here it refers to the space between
the paragraph margins and the page margins. So it is an area, although
in many cases it has zero width because the paragraph margins extend out
to the page margins.

You can (sort of) see the layout in the diagram at the top right of the
dialog window.

I think also, you may be expecting more structure in documents than
Writer actually provides. The menus may suggest that a caption is
something you somehow "add to" an image, but that is not the case. The
image and the caption (and the frame around them) are completely
separate entities at the document level. You can separate them by
cut/paste and distribute them over the whole document, if you like.

Writer adds the frame and puts the components together because it is a
common way of laying out captioned objects. It's not the only way to do
it; it may not even be the best way. It may not fit your document
layout, but you are free to rearrange the components however you like. I
believe (but I haven't checked) that you can make your own
fully-functional captions without using the Insert > Caption menu at all.

<Joe


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[John Kaufmann]

Hi Joe,

In a message dated 2009.11.08 12:14 -0500, Joe Smith wrote:

>> ... "Border" is not an independent entity from "Area"; on the
>> contrary, "Paragraph area" is bounded by the paragraph borders, and
>> "Page area" is bounded by the page borders. because the selection
>> set is not orthogonal, the model doesn't compute; it runs into
>> problems.
> ...
> The 'border' here is not really a border in the sense most people
> would get from seeing the word. Instead, here it refers to the space
> between the paragraph margins and the page margins. So it is an area,
> although in many cases it has zero width because the paragraph
> margins extend out to the page margins. ...

Ahh! Thanks for that clarification!


> ... The menus may suggest that a caption is something you somehow
> "add to" an image, but that is not the case. The image and the
> caption (and the frame around them) are completely separate entities
> at the document level.

That's true, in Writer's design. [I appreciate design generality as much
as anyone, but it can be carried to unproductive lengths. A caption is
an attribute of the picture it captions; without the picture, the
caption is meaningless. (That's why Writer adds the frame.) That said, I
recognize this is the place to talk about how OO works, not how it
should work.]


> You can separate them by cut/paste and distribute them over the whole
> document, if you like.

But if you cut the caption from a picture (frame) and paste it
elsewhere, does it retain the property of "caption" - or is it just
unassociated text?

> Writer adds the frame and puts the components together because it is
> a common way of laying out captioned objects. It's not the only way
> to do it; it may not even be the best way. It may not fit your
> document layout, but you are free to rearrange the components however
> you like.

The spatial association of picture and caption is not just a common way
of laying out captioned objects.  We are not talking about machine
semantics here.  The caption, an attribute of the picture, is spatially
associated so that we can read the caption while studying the picture.
It is such an inherent and necessary association that Writer adds the
frame to enforce it.  That spatial association is implicit in the word
"caption", and is the difference between a caption of a picture and more
general comments about the picture.


> I believe (but I haven't checked) that you can make your own
> fully-functional captions without using the Insert > Caption menu at
> all.

Yes, as I understand it, that is essentially Andrew Pitonyak's method -
though it seems to me he does that primarily to compensate for Writer's
weakness in handling graphics.

Thanks again,
John

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[pitonyak]

Sorry for any delays, I had two hard drives fail on the same day and it
took a while for me to get back up...

What is a caption? A caption is a paragraph containing a specific "field".

If you look at a caption, you will usually see something like this:


Figure <Figure + 1>: This is a pretty picture.


What are these things?

1. "Figure " is regular text.

2. I used "<Figure + 1>" to represent a field containing the formula
"Figure + 1", which means that it obtains the current value of Figure,
adds 1 to it, and displays that at the current location. As captions are
removed and inserted, all other captions retain the correct value.

3. ": This is a pretty picture." is just text for the caption.

Assume that this is the 5th caption so that it appears as "Figure 5:
This is a pretty picture." If you reference figure 5 in context, all
text preceding the field to the start of the paragraph is included. In
other words, you are expected to use short text values preceding the
field in a single paragraph for a caption. When is this a problem?

I created captions for equations. On a whim, I opted to number equations
in different ways


EQ 5  x = y + 1


z = 2+x    EQ 6

Can you see why this did not work? The only problem was that I wanted to
insert a reference, and the reference to (6) with the context stuff
wanted to insert everything before the 6. I know, so do not reference
that way....


If OOo creates the caption, it places the figure in a frame with the
"caption paragraph".



On 11/09/2009 11:45 AM, John Kaufmann wrote:
>> document, if you like.
> You can separate them by cut/paste and distribute them over the whole
>
> But if you cut the caption from a picture (frame) and paste it
> elsewhere, does it retain the property of "caption" - or is it just
> unassociated text?

As mentioned above, a caption is nothing more than a paragraph with a
specific field in it. There are fields already created for Figure,
Table, Illustration, Drawing, Listing, and Text. Hmm, I might have
created at least one of those myself. Too lazy to check against a new
document. The point, however, is that I can create my own fields for this.

Did you just figure out that really there is nothing special about a
caption and it may not be considered a caption until you choose to cross
reference it?

>> I believe (but I haven't checked) that you can make your own
>> fully-functional captions without using the Insert > Caption menu at
>> all.
>
> Yes, as I understand it, that is essentially Andrew Pitonyak's method
> - though it seems to me he does that primarily to compensate for
> Writer's weakness in handling graphics.
Correct, that is how I do it.

--
Andrew Pitonyak
My Macro Document: http://www.pitonyak.org/AndrewMacro.odt
My Book: http://www.hentzenwerke.com/catalog/oome.htm
Info:  http://www.pitonyak.org/oo.php
See Also: http://documentation.openoffice.org/HOW_TO/index.html


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