[Solved] Illustration Captions numbering, spacing & name

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EdIsenberg
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[Solved] Illustration Captions numbering, spacing & name

Post by EdIsenberg »

Captions Problem #1
I have two illustrations (maps) in my novel. I inserted the first image, then right-clicked to add a caption. Everything worked fine, and when I went to the bottom of my ToC, I added a "List of Illustrations" (LoI), and sure enough, the map caption was there, preceded by the words "Illustration 1: ".

The problem is when I went to a later chapter to enter the 2nd map. I followed the same procedure described above, but this time the caption was again labeled "Illustration 1: ". Obviously, it should be Illustration 2. I've looked at help, and it describes how to add a chapter numbering system where the second illustration would now be labeled "Illustration 2.1" with later ones in the same chapter. This isn't what I want. I just want the illustration to be #2, and appear that way in the LoI.

I tried pressing F9 while in the caption area, and that only made it worse. Now it reads "Illustration 22.1." I've tried deleting both the image & the frame, and then reloading the image and adding the caption. It still reads Illustration 22.1. Worse, now the LiI lists both maps as Illustration #18.1 and 22.1 !

Can anyone tell me how to get to just "Illustration 1: " and "Illustration 2: "?

Captions Problem #2

In the Navigator Pane, under text frames, I wanted the frames to be labeled in a way that described what they were. In the first Illustration, I right-clicked the frame, clicked the Frame option, and then clicked on Options. At the top is the Name field, and I put in Map #1. That worked. Then I went to the second map, did the exact same thing, and when I clicked OK, it changed the name from Map #2 to Frame 4. Huh? I try it again, and now it changes the name to Frame 5 !

What am I doing wrong?

Captions Problem #3

It was easy to add to FRAME | WRAP | TOP to 0.10, in order to give the appropriate amount of space after the paragraph above. However, it doesn't consistently work when I want to add space between the frame and the paragraph below. When I do it the way I added space above, sometimes it doesn't do anything, and other times it works. Right now I've got it working, but I have no idea why or, if in the future it stops working, what I should do to get it working again.
Last edited by EdIsenberg on Fri Jul 07, 2017 10:37 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: Illustration Captions numbering, spacing & name

Post by Zizi64 »

Captions Problem #1
Please upload a short ODF type example file: how you applied the chapters, the illustrrations, the captions and the list. There are many combinations of the settings. We can guess only withuot a real sample document.
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Please, edit the initial post in the topic: add the word [Solved] at the beginning of the subject line - if your problem has been solved.
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Re: Illustration Captions numbering, spacing & name

Post by acknak »

EdIsenberg wrote:... Can anyone tell me how to get to just "Illustration 1: " and "Illustration 2: "?
Captions are nothing special, just a plain paragraph. What makes the paragraph a caption is that it contains a specific kind of field which tracks and displays the numbering: a "number range" field. It's not necessary to use any special functions to modify the caption; you can just edit the text, and you can modify the field by Insert > Fields > Other > Variables > Type: Number Range ... I think, if you go there, select the "Illustration" range field and set the "Level" to none, you should get what you want.

Beware: if you double-click on any particular number range field, you may be able to change the level there, but that seems to get things out of sync and I'm not sure how/why that's supposed to work—I would avoid that. Changing the field through the main fields dialog seems to apply to every instance consistently.

If that doesn't help, you may need to visit each caption, delete the field (it acts like a character), and re-insert it (use the Insert > Fields dialog).
... I try it again, and now it changes the name to Frame 5 !
Sorry, I'm not sure I understand what you're doing/looking for here. Are you concerned with what appears in the Navigator panel, or in the document?

As far as I know, the name of the text frame has no bearing on what appears in the caption.

I've never encountered Writer changing a frame's name, unless the frame is deleted and re-inserted. It may have something to do with your re-adding the caption: that function (right-click > Insert Caption) will add a text frame to contain the image and its caption. There are separate names assigned to both the text frame and the image. It's hard to guess what's happening from the description.
What am I doing wrong?
It was easy to add to FRAME | WRAP | TOP to 0.10, in order to give the appropriate amount of space after the paragraph above. However, it doesn't consistently work ...
The most stable configuration with frames (graphic or text) in Writer is to set the anchor mode to "As Character". In that case, the frame will act like a (large) character. The nice thing about that is that you can format it using the standard text layout settings. The only reason not to use "As Character" is if you need text to wrap around the frame (that is, text appearing to the right, left, or both sides).
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Re: Illustration Captions numbering, spacing & name

Post by EdIsenberg »

File Upload Failed !!!
When I first tried uploading the file it said I had exceeded the maximum size of 2MB (the file was over by about half a MB). I dramatically reduced the size down to 718KB, and now the error message says the maximum allowed size is 128KB !!! How am I supposed to upload this file? Am I even doing it right? I click on "Upload attachment" | Choose File | Add the file. Then I get the errors. I keep running into problems like this and they are driving me crazy!

One other question: May I assume I am NOT supposed to add the file as an inline attachment?

When I finally get the file loaded, this will be the message:

Here is the part of the novel dealing with these two illustrations that have captions. Notice that there are TWO captions for the first illustration. I don't know how to edit or delete a caption without deleting the photo & its surrounding frame. What happened here was I accidentally created a 2nd caption but couldn't delete the first one, except to put my cursor into it and hold the backspace down until the entire thing was gone. Then I would manually move the picture up to the top of the frame, etc. What a pain!

The numbering system isn't what I want. Some of what is in this uploaded file is different because it was highly edited, so who knows exactly what ended up changing things (actually, you folks know, but i don't).
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Re: Illustration Captions numbering, spacing & name

Post by robleyd »

This may have been mentioned before, but I'll suggest it again in case you missed it: because the limit for attachments on the forum is 128K, you will need to upload larger files to a file sharing host such as mediafire or dropbox and post the link here.
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Re: Illustration Captions numbering, spacing & name

Post by Bill »

To delete the second caption, select the picture and copy it. Select the frame containing the second caption and delete it. Paste the picture back in the frame containing the first caption.

The only way I've been able to duplicate the Illustration numbering problem is to change the Illustration Number range Value from "Illustration+1" to just "Illustration", but that's just a guess. When the Value is "Illustration+1", the numbering of captions change automatically when new captions are inserted.
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Re: Illustration Captions numbering, spacing & name

Post by Bill »

When you renamed the frames, you may have used the exact same name for both frames. In that case, Writer does rename the second to "Framex" instead of using the same name for both frames.
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Re: Illustration Captions numbering, spacing & name

Post by acknak »

I've never encountered a need for anything special to delete a caption: it's just another text paragraph. Sometimes it can be tricky to get the cursor into the text when it's inside a frame; if you find the frame is getting selected, press F2 to switch to editing the frame contents (the image and caption text).
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Re: Illustration Captions numbering, spacing & name

Post by Bill »

When I tried deleting just the second caption's text, the frame remained in place with an empty paragraph below the picture. That added space between the picture and the remaining original caption. To get rid of that space, I had to delete the frame.
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Re: Illustration Captions numbering, spacing & name

Post by EdIsenberg »

My three questions have all been answered by a combination of the various messages in this thread. For future readers:

Question 1 (regarding captions & autonumbering).
I deleted both the pictures and the frames. I inserted the pictures and then right-clicked them to create captions. I created the captions as type ILLUSTRATION, without any text such as "ILLUSTRATION 1:" (NOTE: creating a caption automatically created a frame to surround both it and the picture, keepting them together). I made sure that all of the picture dialogue boxes were basically left as they were automatically created. Under PICTURE | TYPE, the horizontal alignment was center; and under PICTURE | OPTIONS, the PRINT box was checked. I left the PICTURE | WRAP spacing all zeros. In the caption box (see immediately below), I made sure the format of the numbers was Arabic because that was the style I wanted, and left the numbering and separator fields alone. Finally, I ignored the Illustration number that was in the bottom box. After creating the caption, if I wanted to change the text I just clicked elsewhere on the page and then clicked into the caption area. Then I backspaced to delete backwards, typed new text, etc. to make my changes. If I wanted the caption on top, I moved the picture lower in the frame, and vice versa.
Illustration Caption creation dialogue box.jpg
For formatting changes, I made sure the Styles & Formatting Pane was visible. To do things like edit the font the caption was in or make the text either centered or left-justified, I clicked into the caption area as above. In the Styles Pane, I right-clicked the category I chose when I created the caption (in my case "Illustration") and changed the settings there. If I wished to adjust the top & bottom margins of the frame or the picture, I clicked on the picture and in the Styles Pane I right-clicked either the Picture or Frame, and made my adjustments. See Question 3 below.

Question 2: Naming the frames in the Navigation Pane
Frames are listed in the Navingation Pane under "Text Boxes." In my case I only had two illustrations, but if I had a lot, I wanted to know how to name them beyond the ones that were automatically generated: FRAME 1, FRAME 2, etc. I right-clicked on the item in question, and under OUTLINE LEVEL, the value was "1," under DRAG MODE I made it "Insert a Copy," under DISPLAY, I put in "Active Window" although I'm not sure what the other options meant, and finally, under TEXT FRAME, I clicked on RENAME, and then changed the entry from "Frame2" to something more meaningfull to me: "Map #2: Large-scale (zoomed-in) map of the area surrounding the Dallas Convention Center" Please note that if you build a table of illustrations, the names of the frames aren't the names of the illustrations that will be shown there. I chose CAPTIONS (it seemed the best fit) and whatever was in the Caption Text was reproduced.

I happen to be a strong supporter in having a Table of Contents, List of Illustrations, index of tables and whatever else you have in your work. In my case, a 375-page novel had only 2 illustrations, both maps, but I wanted people to be able to find (and in the case of Kindle), click on a chapter or map and go right there. I always hated seeing a map several chapters back and now when I really want to refer to it, I can't remember where in the novel it is.
Navigation Pane Text Frames names.jpg
Question 3: Adjusting spacing above and below a picture
I'm not quite sure where I went wrong in the first place, but after starting all over with new pictures with new captions all in new frames, I got it to work using an obvious method. I could have right-clicked the frame by clicking not the picture but the corners just below the left or right side of the caption area. Instead I did something even easier. With my handy Styles & Formatting Pane visible, I clicked anywhere on the picture. That brought up only two styles: FRAME and PICTURE, with the latter highlighted. I right-clicked FRAME and formatted it using familiar dialogue boxes. Under WRAP, I added 0.10" as spacing above and below. Then I cicked OK. Do NOT do this with PICTURE, as that will only affect space within the frame, including, among other things, the possibility of adding unsightly space between the picture and its caption.

If anyone else wants to add comments to what I've said here or correct me, by all means, do so! The object is to help other souls as lost in these issues as I was. If I didn't say it right or left something out, please help make my comments here better.
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Re: Illustration Captions numbering, spacing & name

Post by EdIsenberg »

Sorry, but I spoke too soon. Illustration # is still wrong!

I tried the method described to me above that I said worked on the very short subsection of my novel that I intended to upload via Dropbox. However, when I tried to do the very same thing in my actual novel, it didn't work. I still get "Illustration 18.1: blah blah blah" This is driving me crazy! To remind everyone, all I want is the Illustration that is the first map to be "Illustration 1:" and the second map for it to be "Illustration 2:". Even better, it could be "Map 1: blah blah blah." Alternately, I don't need any numbering scheme. Let the caption just be the the caption wording without any "Illustration 1: or "Map 1:" Just: "Small-scale (zoomed-out) map of area surrounding the Dallas Convention Center"

Here are the steps I took.
1) I insert my cursor where I want the first map to go.
2) I insert the picture from the icon in my toolbar (or use INSERT | PICTURE | FROM FILE)
3) I right-click on the picture and click on CAPTION.
4) I enter in the caption: "Small-scale (zoomed-out) map of area surrounding the Dallas Convention Center". In the area at the bottom of the dialogue box, the words "Illustration 1: Small-scale (zoomed-out) map of area surrounding the Dallas Convention Center" appear. I don't change any of the default settings. I press ENTER.
5) The caption appears below the picture as follows: "Illustration 18.1: Small-scale (zoomed-out) map of area surrounding the Dallas Convention Center" Note that the "18" comes from the chapter in which the picture resides: Chapter 18. The ".1" references the fact that it is the first illustration in the chapter.

If, just after my Table of Contents towards the beginning of the book, I do the following:
INSERT | INDEXES* AND TABLES | INDEXES* AND TABLES | INDEX/TABLE TYPE: Illustration Index | CREATE FROM CATEGORY: Illustration | DISPLAY: Caption,
I get the caption in Step 5 above, with the illustration number 18.1.

[*NOTE: The proper plural form of index is indices. Indexes is part of a modern effort to regularize all
irregular verbs and nouns, thereby IMHO robbing English of the idiosyncrasies that give the language its
flavor. Soon they'll be wanting us to learn & use Esperanto or Lingwa de Planeta.] :knock:


I can, if I want, insert my second map in Chapter 22, and get Illustration 22.1.

If I go back to the caption and simply backspace over the "8.1" part of "18.1" or get rid of the entire "Illustration 18.1:"", I lose the entry in the List of Illustrations.

I would give up on having the Illustrations List after the ToC except that there is a lot of text in a lot of pages within the two chapters where the maps appear that reference action on various streets. At least once in the later chapter readers will probably want to go back and look at the first map to get another look at an overview of the area. Unless I want them to manually search for the page where each map is, the answer is to have the maps listed in the List of Illustrations right after the ToC.

I could edit the captions to get rid of the numbers or change them completley (e.g., "Map 1: Small-scale (zoomed-out) map of area surrounding the Dallas Convention Center"). Then I could just type text at the bottom of the page where the ToC ends and manually enter in the page numbers where the two maps appear. The problem is that everytime I change something between now and the final draft, I have to manually change that manual List of Illustrations. After the book is published on Amazon, I want it to go on Kindle, Barnes & Noble, and possibly other protected eBooks. The reader expects the ToC and List or Illustrations to be hyperlinks that take them to the right place instantly. Am I going to have to manually create hyperlinks to the maps? Oh, please?!

Someone please rescue me from this situation. If it's my fault and I should just RTFM, I promise to do it after I've finished this damn novel. For now, I'm at your mercy!

Ed

Despite being in the business before becomming disabled, I have never understood how in a science that relies on programming that works once to always work (it is a sequence of steps, and the computer doesn't get to decide to skip a step or do something different every 5th time).somehow we who use computers are almost always forced to deal with things that work or don't work depending on the will of the computer-god. I programmed one of the first semi-intelligent report generators that understood the written human language (well, up to a command vocabulary of about 500 words and an infinite data vocablulary).What worked once always worked, without exception. This S/W was written in 12K modules for a minicomputer that was for sale in the early 1980s. As the years went by and things got more complex, though, a science became an art that later became a morass of spaghetti-code. Can you imagine what will happen when the technological singularity occurs and computers wake up? They'll be as unpredictable as humans are. Hmmm, there may be a metaphysical religious implication in that thought...!
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Re: Illustration Captions numbering, spacing & name

Post by Bill »

You still have your options set to number the captions by chapter instead of continuously for the entire document. To change the option, right-click one of the maps (not the frame) and select Caption. On the Caption dialog, click the Options button. On the Options dialog, click in the Level box and select <None>. Click OK on the Options dialog. The Options dialog should close and you should see the caption numbers change to a continuous format. Click Cancel on the Captions dialog since you don't really want to insert an extra caption. If the caption numbering is still wrong, then you need to upload a real document so we can see if there is some other setting that's causing the numbering to not work as it should.
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Re: Illustration Captions numbering, spacing & name

Post by EdIsenberg »

Thanks, Bill. Strangely, when I clicked OPTIONS it already said Level 0. I knew I'd changed that after the last response. This time I started all over, making sure to click the OPTIONS button & double-checking that the Level was in fact 0, which it was by default. It worked perfectly. Why it hadn't worked before is a mystery.

Thanks again to you and everyone else for continuing to help me. You know, not one person has said RTFM, which was probably a fair response. Everyone was so helpful and so quick to respond. I continue to be delighted with this Forum.

Ed
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Re: Illustration Captions numbering, spacing & name

Post by Raptor88 »

acknak wrote:
EdIsenberg wrote:... Can anyone tell me how to get to just "Illustration 1: " and "Illustration 2: "?
Captions are nothing special, just a plain paragraph. What makes the paragraph a caption is that it contains a specific kind of field which tracks and displays the numbering: a "number range" field. It's not necessary to use any special functions to modify the caption; you can just edit the text, and you can modify the field by Insert > Fields > Other > Variables > Type: Number Range ...
acknak,
Just wanted to thank you for helping me solve a caption numbering problem that I've been trying to fix for many days.

I have a Libre Writer document that has 29 graphics in it. The graphics have captions as Figure 1, Figure 2, etc. Somehow the Figure numbers went out of sequence. It went from Figure 23 to Figure 25. No matter what I tried, including restarting my PC running Win10, I could never get Figure 24.

With your advice above, I FINALLY fixed the problem. Thank you very much for sharing your knowledge with us novices.
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