Cannot group image and caption together

[osto1017]

Hello,

I am writing my masters thesis and experience the following issue:

I have several images in my document (all with text wrapping, NOT in line) and want to add numbered captions for my automatically generated table of figures.

The problem is, when right-clicking on an image and selecting "add caption", the text box of the caption is not groupable with the image. The text box has a different kind of border than one would expect, see image:

For reference, I tried to recreate the issue in a new document, and there the caption has a "normal", groupable textbox, see:

Does any one of you have an idea how to move forward and fix this issue? The upper version of the caption box isnt groupable and moveable, so it is very hard to work with and it messes up the document at serveral points.

Thanks a lot and have a great day!

Tobi

[#2]

Hello @osto1017 ,

before I give you my reply, let me please ask you - what are you trying to achive by "grouping" the caption with the image? Why is your caption a text box?

The reason I ask is that you seem to be trying to achieve something I would expect to see in PowerPoint rather than in Word.

The captions are fields and can be styled as they are essentially text (well, not really, but for the sake of this conversation yes). Pictures and tables are objects. You don't "group" captions (= paragraphs) with pictures. That's a thing you do in PowerPoint but not in Word. Grouping works for objects only.

What you do:

- You 'insert' captions. You find them in the 'References' ribbon. 

- To make them "stick" with the picture/table/object below them, you mark the paragraph of the caption (and that only) with Keep with next (Home → Paragraph → Line and Page breaks).

Note: The above works only IF a caption is ABOVE an object (which is what you are doing, seeing the screen-shot).

Let us know if this helped you. L.

[#3]

Hi, did you figure this out? It has also happened to my document for my dissertation. Like yourself it works properly on other documents and was working properly prior to it not.

[#4]

I strongly recommend that you have the layout of all images set so that they are In-line with Text as then, your document will be far less likely to becoming corrupted as a result of mis-matched xml tag errors.
When images are set with that layout, they will be inserted into a paragraph which can be formatted so that it is kept with the next paragraph into which you can insert the caption.
If you want the caption above the image, format the paragraph containing the caption so it is kept with the next paragraph that contains the image.

[#5]

@osto1017 

I have experienced this exact same problem and found the solution (albeit too late for you, it might be useful to others, or future me).

This issue arises when the Word document was opened and saved with a different (older) version of Word than you currently are using. When opened with a more recent version of windows, the document then goes into 'compatibility mode' and changes some object types.

In my case I had figures (Wrap Text: square) with captions (object: shape format) and grouped them together to make sure they stay together. After it was opened and saved by an older version of Word, the corners of the box around the caption was showing grey squares instead of open circles (exaclty as you show in your figures), and I was unable to group captions. Ungrouping a previously grouped figure and caption lead to two ungroupable objects. It turns out the object type of the caption was changed from being a 'shape format' to a 'text box', caused by the compatibility settings, and this object type cannot be grouped with a 'picture format'. To undo this, go to 'File'→'info'→'convert', the latter option being a big button visible as the big square with the word logo on the left-hand side in the area named 'compatibility mode'. Note this might change some of the layout of the document. After this the caption by default is of the object type 'shape format' again (this is shown in the ribbon at the top right) and is groupable with figures again (iff figures are wrapped not being 'in-line with text' but something else).

TLDR: An older version of Word was used before, causing the document to go into compatibility mode. Go to 'File'→'info'→'convert', the latter option being a big button visible as the big square with the word logo on the left-hand side in the area named 'compatibility mode'. A popup gives a warning the layout might change, click 'OK'. Now captions are groupable with figures again.

[#6]

Regardless of the version of Word being used, as mentioned in my response in April, I strongly recommend that you have the layout of all images set so that they are In-line with Text as then, your document will be far less likely to becoming corrupted as a result of mis-matched xml tag errors.
When images are set with that layout, they will be inserted into a paragraph which can be formatted so that it is kept with the next paragraph into which you can insert the caption.

If you want to wrap text around an image and its caption, insert them into a one cell table that has the text set to wrap around it.

[#7]

@Doug_Robbins_Word_MVP 

Thanks for your response. I agree with your statement that In-line with Text is less prone to corruption. However, sometimes Word works in mysterious ways and it is nice to understand what happened and how to prevent it (e.g. by using In-line with Text or a one cell table, as you suggested), therefore I decided to respond with my 'solution'.

[#8]

your replay was very helpful for me. this problem caused me a lot of pain, really thank you for explaining it in detail. :)

[#9]

I suspect, but do not know, that the shape was converted to a Frame, which is not an object which can be selected; it is paragraph formatting.

[#10]

I'm also writing my masters thesis and the same thing happened to me. Thank you so much for the suggestion, it saved me so much time! @Omnifora 

[#11]

@Omnifora THIS was the answer.  Thanks for simply answering the question as asked; it's incredible how often experts will do everything they can to dissuade the question instead of just answering it.

[#12]

Thank you, this fixed my similar problem.

[#13]

@OmniforaThank you for the solution. It works great! All other solutions given did not work, but yours did!!! Thank you, thank you, thank you!!