Making Image Float

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tedg
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Making Image Float

Post by tedg »

This is such a stupid question, but I do need help.

I paste images into a document, but often they are large enough that I am left with large blank sections at the bottom of the previous page. How do I make these images stay anchored near where I placed it and still allow text to flow in front of it? This is a document I am modifying a lot so the need for reflow would be frequent.
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Amontillado
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Re: Making Image Float

Post by Amontillado »

I think I can help.

Click on your image. Resize with drag handles to suit your taste.

Click the "palettes" button in the tool bar to display the palettes, if they are not already in view.

Choose the fifth button to the right to choose the shapes palette. This is in the line of buttons that looks like A, T, a backward P paragraph symbol, a table, and finally the fifth option, a square and circle. It may have been selected automatically when you clicked on the image.

If you choose the "inline with text" placement option, you won't have any word wrap options. You can choose "float with paragraph", which will cause the image to stick with the paragraph it's anchored to, or "floats with paragraph on page," which will keep it on the same page with the paragraph it's anchored to.

In either float setting, you can adjust where the image appears, and you have six different text wrap options and six different alignment controls. Note that if you select an alignment and then drag the image, the alignment will get automatically deselected, which I think is the expected thing.

Hope that helps.
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martin
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Re: Making Image Float

Post by martin »

Floating images may indeed be a good way to help prevent undesirable blank space. In addition to what Amontillado described you can also select the image and use the menu Tools > Shapes > Shape Placement > Floats on Page of Paragraph to modify the image so it floats alongside text. This same command is also available from the image's contextual menu, i.e. right-click the image and choose Image Placement > Floats on Page of Paragraph
Vanceone
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Re: Making Image Float

Post by Vanceone »

Floating images are tricky, primarily because if you attach it to a paragraph so it moves with the paragraph, it attaches to the top of the paragraph, and if there's not enough room for the paragraph plus image on the page... things go haywire.

So, some tips: Don't worry about it until you've finalized your text and are doing your formatting passes. Then, start at the top of your document and work your way down, floating images as you go. Be aware that you may have to attach your floating image to a different paragraph in order to "make it work." The attachment points are invisible, so if your image is attached to the "wrong paragraph" in order to make it appear at the bottom right of Page 10, for instance, that's a hack but acceptable in my book.

The problem is that the text flow around an image might move the paragraph to the next or to the prior page as it wraps, then the image wants to move too... and then there is suddenly room for the paragraph again, so it removes, and the cycle begins again, and then the layout engine recognizes it's in a loop and gives up and just randomly places your image somewhere "close" to the paragraph, but in my experience on the previous page, at the top. (it's not random placement, but darned if I know the tie breaking rules) I.E. nowhere near where you want it to be.

Nisus is wonderful, but it's not a page layout program, truth be told. If you have a lot of images that need text wrapping and flowing around them, it may be better to maybe write your text in Nisus and then export it to something like InDesign, QuarkXPress, or Canvas (am I missing any?).

The other thing you can do is use text boxes. Create a text box, stick the image in that, then the text box itself can be moved with much more "I want this image here, and here it shall stay!" Text boxes are not anchored to paragraphs, so they do not move as text flows around them.

Frankly, if I have a lot of images, I'd go with text boxes and pictures inserted in them for much, much better control.
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xiamenese
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Re: Making Image Float

Post by xiamenese »

Nisus is wonderful, but it's not a page layout program, truth be told. If you have a lot of images that need text wrapping and flowing around them, it may be better to maybe write your text in Nisus and then export it to something like InDesign, QuarkXPress, or Canvas (am I missing any?).
I'd agree with that, but yes, you're missing Affinity Publisher, currently £47.99 here … a fraction of the outlay on InDesign or QuarkXpress; I don't know Canvas.

:)

Mark
Amontillado
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Re: Making Image Float

Post by Amontillado »

I'll second Affinity Publisher. If Nisus disappeared (horrors!) BBEdit plus Affinity Publisher would allow some pale shadow of civilization to continue.

If BBEdit and AP went away as well, I guess clay and a sharp stick would have to do. Anything but the hegemony we dare not name. Shudder - what if Clippy returned?
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