2019 Preview and Captioning Photos in Word

The primary reason I started Spatially Challenged is to have a lasting record of questions I get asked frequently. Since the American Society of Agronomy meeting in November, I’ve had a number of questions about terrain derivatives like curvature, terrain wetness index, etc. I promise I’ve heard those questions and the answers are coming!

I also write posts about tools as I use them, which lets this blog document my work-life and then some. In the early part of 2019 I will be writing (and defending…) my MS thesis at OSU. During that process, I plan on sharing tools and tricks that make the writing process easier.

The blog has been a little light on actual content and tips over the holiday season, so here’s just a tiny thing to tide you over til the next few posts. Say you had a Word document with a really cute picture of a sleeping puppy, and you wanted to caption that picture and have the caption move around with the photo as you keep typing and things move around on the page.

You can click on the picture, go to the reference tab on the main menu and click “Insert Caption.”

Clicking “Insert Caption” opens this window where you can write the caption and decide where it will go. Now if I want the caption and the photo to always move together, I need to group them by clicking the photo and the caption while holding down the control key. Then you right click and select the “Group” option. Now you can keep typing and move the photo around without the caption getting separated.

I’ll keep this silly example document and slowly add to it as a way to demonstrate some formatting tools. Note that I use Word 2013, but most of the basic formatting features don’t change too much between versions.

Again, thank you for reading and I look forward to writing more this year– feel free to comment or tweet your questions throughout 2019!