Gripe about Word and image placement

  • Thread starter Harlan Messinger
  • Start date
H

Harlan Messinger

I just sent the following to the MS wish list about a pet peeve of mine.
What do you all think about this flaw?

Over 15 years ago WordPerfect was smart enough to move an image or other
object to the top of the next page if the remainder of the current page
wasn't big enough to hold it--and to fill the remainder of the current page
with the text that had been typed in after the image. It was smart enough to
adjust references to these objects automatically: If the paragraph before
the image said "See the picture {below}", where {below} indicates a
reference code, then when the image moved to the next page, {below} would be
changed automatically to {on page X}. As text was added or deleted, the
reflowing occurred automatically, so that if the image once again could fit
directly where it had been inserted by the user, it would.

Why in the world, in all this time, has Microsoft not seen fit to do this
with Word? Does Microsoft really think it's attractive that when an image
two-thirds of a page high flows to the next page, it should leave a
quarter-page or half-page empty gap on the page before it? Or does Microsoft
think its users don't like word processing to be *too* automatic, that we
like manually moving our images around every time we revise our documents?
 
C

Cindy M -WordMVP-

Hi Harlan,

I've actually discussed this issue (and the related one about keeping a
picture on a certain page), in person, with people on the Word team. It's not
that they don't know there's a problem. Or even feel it would be nice to fix
it.

What's getting in the way is how Word was originally designed to work. (And
WordPerfect was designed quite differently, just BTW) Word was conceived as a
word processing application, primarily concerned with dynamic text flow.
"Floating" graphics are foreign objects for the text flow, that the text flow
has to deal with; this requires certain "compromises". For one thing, any
object has to be attached to a paragraph, and when that paragraph moves to a
new page, the graphic moves with it.

Text also cannot flow past graphics that stretch across the entire width of
the page.

And the real obstacles come from when and how the layout triggers. Basically,
trying to incorporate maximum graphics flexibility would mean that Word could
end up never being able to finish laying out a page because the graphic
positioning and reflowing of the text would go into a loop.

Word's layouting capability has improved tremendously in the last decade, but
it remains a word processing application. For more demanding layouting, you
need to use an application designed to do just that. Publisher or PageMaker,
just for example.
Over 15 years ago WordPerfect was smart enough to move an image or other
object to the top of the next page if the remainder of the current page
wasn't big enough to hold it--and to fill the remainder of the current page
with the text that had been typed in after the image. It was smart enough to
adjust references to these objects automatically: If the paragraph before
the image said "See the picture {below}", where {below} indicates a
reference code, then when the image moved to the next page, {below} would be
changed automatically to {on page X}. As text was added or deleted, the
reflowing occurred automatically, so that if the image once again could fit
directly where it had been inserted by the user, it would.

Why in the world, in all this time, has Microsoft not seen fit to do this
with Word? Does Microsoft really think it's attractive that when an image
two-thirds of a page high flows to the next page, it should leave a
quarter-page or half-page empty gap on the page before it? Or does Microsoft
think its users don't like word processing to be *too* automatic, that we
like manually moving our images around every time we revise our documents?
Click to expand...

Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Sep 30 2003)
http://www.word.mvps.org

This reply is posted in the Newsgroup; please post any follow question or
reply in the newsgroup and not by e-mail :)
 
J

Jezebel

Of course, you're right. But that's true of nearly everything. It doesn't
work at all under water.
 
C

Cindy M -WordMVP-

Hi Jezebel,
Of course, you're right. But that's true of nearly everything. It doesn't
work at all under water.
Click to expand...
I'm considering how to best say what I want to say...

I guess it depends on what your purpose is, replying to postings in these
groups? I've seen various motivations in the eight years I've done it:
- a compulsion to help
- showing off
- wanting to repay for receiving help
- a simple love of answering questions
- a need to interact with others

No matter what the motivation, something that's very important to me,
personally, is that the information given is as accurate as possible. Even
if the original poster isn't going to listen, someone else may come along
with a similar concern and actually want a useful/factual reply.

Of course, these groups are what the collective makes them. No one can
dictate the content or attitude in the messages. And I'd be one of the
first to howl if anyone tried <g> But you have so much to offer, that it
always hurts me when I see such a back-handed slap in the face as an
answer.

Cindy Meister
 
J

Jezebel

I'm sorry you see that as a slap in the face. Or a Surbiton Fish Dance?
Seriously, it wasn't meant as such. Entschuldigung.
 
J

Jezebel

Hard to think of an alternative: "RTM" lacks a certain je ne sais quoi. I
thought back hairs were illegal in Switzerland?
 
H

Harlan Messinger

Cindy M -WordMVP- said:
Hi Harlan,

I've actually discussed this issue (and the related one about keeping a
picture on a certain page), in person, with people on the Word team. It's not
that they don't know there's a problem. Or even feel it would be nice to fix
it.

What's getting in the way is how Word was originally designed to work. (And
WordPerfect was designed quite differently, just BTW) Word was conceived as a
word processing application, primarily concerned with dynamic text flow.
"Floating" graphics are foreign objects for the text flow, that the text flow
has to deal with; this requires certain "compromises". For one thing, any
object has to be attached to a paragraph, and when that paragraph moves to a
new page, the graphic moves with it.

Text also cannot flow past graphics that stretch across the entire width of
the page.

And the real obstacles come from when and how the layout triggers. Basically,
trying to incorporate maximum graphics flexibility would mean that Word could
end up never being able to finish laying out a page because the graphic
positioning and reflowing of the text would go into a loop.
Click to expand...

No doubt there could be heuristics to figure out that such a situation
has occurred and notify the user that the layout won't work as
requested.
Word's layouting capability has improved tremendously in the last decade, but
it remains a word processing application.
Click to expand...

WordPerfect was a word processing application, and yet they made it
work. Your explanation doesn't really get into why Word can't do the
same thing.
For more demanding layouting, you
need to use an application designed to do just that. Publisher or PageMaker,
just for example.
Click to expand...

Or, apparently, a competing pure word processing application named
WordPerfect. I shouldn't have to resort to Publisher or PageMaker: I
still only have one stream of text running from the beginning to the
end of the document. And the computations really aren't that
complicated. Word does figure out when it needs to put a graphic on
the next page. There shouldn't then be any difficulty back-filling
behind the graphic with the text that "follows" it. Let's put it this
way: I'm a programmer, and *I* can easily work out the algorithm for
this.
 
H

Harlan Messinger

Jezebel said:
Word does this already. RTFM, perhaps? Or do you just like griping?
Click to expand...

What manual, smart-mouth? Microsoft Help has been largely useless
since Office 2000 and I haven't seen a manual since Office 97. I have
seen no options on the graphic properties dialog to do what I've
described, and I've looked with every new version of Word. Do you know
how to do it, or are you just pretending to be brilliant?
 
C

Cindy M -WordMVP-

Hi Jezebel,
I
thought back hairs were illegal in Switzerland?
Click to expand...
You've lost me on this one... The Swiss occasionally
consider themselves the hedgehog in the middle of Europe,
so if not backhairs, then spines <g>

Cindy Meister
 
C

Cindy M -WordMVP-

Hi Harlan,
WordPerfect was a word processing application, and yet they made it
work. Your explanation doesn't really get into why Word can't do the
same thing.
Click to expand...
WordPerfect is based on a very different concept: the formatting
is stuck right into the text ("Reveal codes"). Word is more
"object-based". Formatting, layout, etc. are based on tables of
data, with pointers in the text to the information. In some
respects, the one has advantages over the other; and in others,
these are disadvantages.

So, WordPerfect does the layout as it "reads" the file from front
to back. Word doesn't do it that way.
I'm a programmer, and *I* can easily work out the algorithm for
this.
Click to expand...
Based on a "new empty framework", perhaps. But if you had to fit
it into Word's core code, and not break anything else, I wonder
just how far you'd get :)

If WordPerfect is more suited to your needs, then please, do use
it. As a colleague of mine says "Horses for courses"; use the
tool that will do the job.

Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Sep 30
2003)
http://www.word.mvps.org

This reply is posted in the Newsgroup; please post any follow
question or reply in the newsgroup and not by e-mail :)
 
H

Harlan Messinger

Cindy M -WordMVP- said:
Hi Harlan,

WordPerfect is based on a very different concept: the formatting
is stuck right into the text ("Reveal codes"). Word is more
"object-based". Formatting, layout, etc. are based on tables of
data, with pointers in the text to the information. In some
respects, the one has advantages over the other; and in others,
these are disadvantages.
Click to expand...

A linear scheme with embedded codes and a hierarchical scheme implemented
with pointers are isomorphic. The correspondence between them is trivial.
So, WordPerfect does the layout as it "reads" the file from front
to back. Word doesn't do it that way.
Click to expand...

It reads the components of the page by tree navigation rather than linearly.
It still follows a well-defined order from start to finish, and it still has
to know for each component what formatting to apply. There really isn't a
difference.
Based on a "new empty framework", perhaps. But if you had to fit
it into Word's core code, and not break anything else, I wonder
just how far you'd get :)
Click to expand...

I would do just fine. I'm curious whether you're a programmer--the answer
will determine whether I'm informing you or arguing with you. :)
If WordPerfect is more suited to your needs, then please, do use
it. As a colleague of mine says "Horses for courses"; use the
tool that will do the job.
Click to expand...

That's rather a simplistic solution, given that how an application places
images is hardly the sole consideration in choosing it. I believe that
Microsoft could perfectly well add this, that it's *obviously* a desirable
feature whose lack indicates a certain slovenliness on their part, and my
main intent was to express that sentiment. You could just as well tell me to
use Mozilla or Opera if I complained that IE is still, after five years or
so, deficient in some key support for Cascading Style Sheets, but that would
simply be avoiding the question of why Microsoft hasn't seen fit to finish
supporting CSS2.
 
H

Harlan Messinger

Harlan Messinger said:
A linear scheme with embedded codes and a hierarchical scheme implemented
with pointers are isomorphic. The correspondence between them is trivial.


It reads the components of the page by tree navigation rather than linearly.
It still follows a well-defined order from start to finish, and it still has
to know for each component what formatting to apply. There really isn't a
difference.
Click to expand...

Good and well known examples of what I'm talking about are HTML and XML.
These are stored linearly in text files, corresponding to WordPerfect (where
the WP codes correspond to HTML/XML tags), but they are generally parsed by
applications into and processed as a hierarchy of objects with pointers.
Your web browser does this every time it loads another web page. As for
output, an XML data editor could just as easily serialize the whole data and
pointer structure out to a file, Word style, as save it in linear HTML or
XML format, WP style. The differences between the linear tag-delimited
format and the hierarchical object format with pointers are immaterial to
the ability of the application to process the data.
 
H

Harlan Messinger

Cindy M -WordMVP- said:
Hi Harlan,

then I highly recommend you apply for a job at Microsoft and show
them where they've gone wrong :)
Click to expand...

Even though I've asked, you've avoided given me any indication of whether

1. you're a programmer--that is, whether you have any direct ability to
assess the merits of the reasoning you're giving me--or

2. you're a non-technical person who is either

a. repeating uncritically something that someone at Microsoft once told
you, or

b. assuming that if Microsoft hasn't added this feature yet, it must be
because it's not possible..
 
H

Harlan Messinger

Jezebel said:
You flatter yourself.
Click to expand...

You flatter yourself by imagining you have the psychic ability necessary to
know whether someone who is a total stranger to you does or doesn't have a
particular set of skills.

Either that or you have a such a glorious opinion of Microsoft that you
assume flat out that anything useful that they haven't already implemented
isn't possible. What a delusion that would be.
 
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