Word Hacks [Electronic resources]

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.