Why are drawing canvas captions in text boxes in Word 2007?

[S. Bevins]

It appears that whenever I add a caption to a drawing canvas in Word 2007, it
inserts the caption in a text box. Can this be changed?

 

[Herb Tyson [MVP]]

No. The drawing canvas accepts only graphical objects. So, a text box is
only way to get text "onto" the canvas.

 

[S. Bevins]

But a caption does not have to be on the canvas does it? Can't it be above or
below like a table caption?

 

[Herb Tyson [MVP]]

No. A caption doesn't have to be on the drawing canvas... and neither do
graphics. But, you asked:

It appears that whenever I add a caption to a drawing canvas in Word 2007,
it inserts the caption in a text box. Can this be changed?

And that's the question I answered.

The real question, I would guess, is how to make a graphic and a caption
stay together. I can think of at least five ways:

1. Include the caption as part of the the actual graphic (in which case,
automated caption numbering cannot be used).

2. Put both the caption and the graphic onto the drawing canvas.

3. Put the graphic in line with text, and the caption immediately below
it.**

4. Put the graphic into a table cell, and place the caption into a cell
immediately below it (borders can be turned off so the fact that it's a
table isn't obvious).**

5. Use any floating wrapping style for the graphic, put the caption into a
text box, and group the graphic & text box so that they stay together.

**My personal preference is for #3 or #4, depending on how I'm planning to
use the document.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

You can also insert the graphic and caption together in a frame. And if you
use method #3, be sure to format the graphic paragraph as "Keep with next."

 

[S. Bevins]

I guess I thought that you had to have an object selected to add a caption
and have it work properly. I see now that that is not the case. Sorry for the
time-waster.