Forum Discussion
How group family photos with their individual labels and create a concordance index.
- Aug 20, 2022
When you add a caption to a wrapped object, Word puts the caption inside text boxes.
When you create index entries, it won't be possible to use the Mark All command for any words that reside within text boxes, which I believe is what you are trying to do. Mark All simply fails to look inside text boxes.
However, it is possible to add XE fields manually by pressing Ctrl+F9 (or Ctrl+Fn+F9 on some keyboards) and then type the field instructions. Be sure to display hidden text first (you can use the ¶ icon on the Home tab), or you may not see the XE field as you add it.
Find & Replace may be another possibility.
Since I will place many photos on a page arranged horizontally and vertically depending on the photos size and shape, the photos have to be all floating. If I understand the "Keep with Next" approach it will only work if I have a single photo on each line, which will not work for me. I tried using it with a floating photo with no luck.
I thought of using PowerPoint too but it doesn't have in Index generation tool like Word.
I hate the thought of having to manually create and maintain the index in Word -- it will be a nightmare, but it may be my only option. I have searched for 3rd party tools to assist but have come up empty and I have been searching for 4 years.
The basic problem seems to be that AutoMark only works on the text layer and not on the graphic layer. Couple this with no way to group a graphic item (photo) with a text item (table or text box) and the result is that I am stuck with no option save manually constructing and maintaining the index - in my case a monumental task that will be error prone.
If I'm lucky I don't really understand the "Keep with" approach and it will work and I just don't know how to use it properly. Or there's another way to solve the problem.
Thanks to all for reading this.
- Lenka_KerumovaAug 19, 2022Iron Contributor
Hi Dennis_Daniel ,
got it. I think the index doesn't work directly with captions, yes, but it searches the text that follows. If not, my mistake. In that case, you can always insert a mark:
- Dennis_DanielAug 19, 2022Copper ContributorOkay -- that works.
I can either type the { XE "Dad"} string in as I initially create the Caption, or I can create the Caption without it and then click into the Caption created and paste the string in. At that same time then I can also backspace the Caption number out entirely.
Since I can group the Caption and Photo together I have the mobility I want.
With the field codes in place the index creation will detect them and I will have a good index.
It does mean that I have to manually edit all Captions - a tedious but doable task.
Thanks again.- Dennis_DanielAug 20, 2022Copper ContributorOkay - I spoke too soon. The string cannot be just typed in as it contains characters that aren't available on the keyboard -- or rather I couldn't find them. The double quote characters are not the same one as on the keyboard and the braces are different too. It could also be because the entire string acts like a single field or something -- I couldn't figure that part out. I used the References Mark Entry on a word outside of the Caption to create a string I could then copy into the Caption and edit.