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Hack 21 Simplify Borders Around Imported Images

For a clean, professional look, the borders around imported images in a document
should be attractive and consistent. If you create a paragraph style
especially for "holding" your
images, your image borders will look better and be easier to adjust
if needed.

With a "figure holder" paragraph
style, you can create consistency for your imported graphics. You can
also change the width and spacing of the borders around all your
figures at once.

First, open the New Style dialog. In Word 2002 and 2003, you get
there from the Styles and Formatting Task Pane, as shown in Figure 3-28. For users with earlier versions of Word,
select FormatStyles and click the New Style button.

Figure 3-28. Creating a new style

In the New Style dialog, create a paragraph style named
"FigureHolder." If you plan to use
captions with your figures, you might want to change the
"Style for following paragraph"
setting to Caption (or whatever style you use for your captions), as
shown in Figure 3-29.

Figure 3-29. Setting the properties for a FigureHolder style

Next, select FormatBorders and choose the Box setting, as
shown in Figure 3-30. Click the Options button,
change the spacing to six points on all sides, and click the OK
button, as shown in Figure 3-31.

Figure 3-30. Adding the border for your figures

Figure 3-31. This setting adjusts how much space there will be between the border and the graphic

Click the OK button again to return to the New Style dialog. Now
select FormatParagraph, click the Indents and Spacing tab,
and change the alignment to Centered, the left and right indentation
to 0.1 inches, and the spacing before and after to six points, as
shown in Figure 3-32. You may also want to click the
Line and Page Breaks tab and check the "Keep with
next" box to prevent page breaks between figures and
captions.

Figure 3-32. Setting the right spacing for the FigureHolder style

Click the OK button to return to the New Paragraph dialog. Next,
select FormatFont and change the font color to red (or
another bright color). The red will serve as a visual warning in case
you accidentally place text inside one of your figure boxes. Click
the OK button to return to the Modify Paragraph dialog, and click the
OK button.

To insert a figure in line with your text, create a blank paragraph
where you want the figure inserted and apply the new FigureHolder
style. All the images in your document will have the same style
border, as shown in Figure 3-33. With a figure
holder paragraph style, you can even leave the figures out while you
work, since the empty boxes will serve as placeholders.

Figure 3-33. The FigureHolder style in action

If you want to change the width or spacing of the borders on all
figures in your document, you can now just modify the FigureHolder
paragraph style.

3.9.1 Hacking the Hack

When you apply a border to a paragraph style, as with the
FigureHolder style described above, the border extends to each
margin. If you want the border just around the image itself, you can
use the same technique we used for the FigureHolder paragraph style,
but this time with a character style.

Because the FigureHolder paragraph style helps maintain consistent
spacing before and after figures, you should continue to use it, but
remove the border. Right-click it on the Styles and Formatting Task
Pane (Word 2002/2003) and choose Modify Style. In the Modify Style
dialog, go to FormatBorder and select None.

Next, you'll create a new character style named
FigureBorder. Follow the steps described above for creating a new
style, except this time choose Character as the style type, as shown
in Figure 3-34.

Figure 3-34. This time, create a character style

Choose FormatBorder and select the Box setting, as shown in
Figure 3-35.

Figure 3-35. The border will appear only around the image, instead of extending to the margins

After you import a figure into a paragraph styled as FigureHolder,
you can select the figure and apply the FigureBorder character style.
If you ever want to change the width of the borders on all the
figures in your document, you can just change the width of the border
in the FigureBorder character style.