How to make LO treat images like MSWord does?

[libre_office_user]

I would be eternally grateful if anyone could give me instructions on how to permanently force Writer to treat images the way MSWord does! I am perpetually stymied when wanting to do the simplest things in Writer, for example:

• I open a new document, insert an image and then want to click under the image to add another image or some text below. Nope, can’t do that. The cursor will not go there no matter what I do. I have to only go above the image, and move the image down by hitting Enter a bunch of times.
• I want to add another image above the previous image, so I again do Insert>Image and the new image covers the old image.
• Images seem to just float around, not connected to the paper or flowing with the text. They move strangely when I type text for no apparent reason.
• Someone else helped me to fix this one, but it is still annoying: I insert a border around an image, then insert a caption and Writer puts the caption inside the border instead of outside the border like the rest of humanity wants.

PLEASE TELL ME HOW TO FIX THIS! I just want images to be easy to work with like in MSWord.

With much appreciation, I thank you!

[mikekaganski]

• Someone else helped me to fix this one, but it is still annoying: I insert a border around an image, then insert a caption and Writer puts the caption inside the border instead of outside the border like the rest of humanity wants.

That only means that “someone”'s advise was e.g. not about a border, but about a frame. If you follow advises without understanding what you do, you will always live in world full of wonders and unexpected outcomes.

The advise by @EarnestAl to read the guide is the best one. For some more information about anchoring/positioning, please also see this FAQ.

[ajlittoz]

The alluded to question is 299715/how-to-put-figure-caption-outside-of-figure-border.

If you can’t adapt to applications other than Word, use Word. Remember that competing apps exist because their developers thought that Word concepts are flawed. Writer gives you much more versatility (and stability) than Word. For that, you need to learn about its features. Requesting Word behaviour is not the right way to go.

The procedure you describe above is called direct formatting which make you sensitive to the slightest modification in text which will result in a formatting change, messing up your page distribution. Styling makes you immune to this.

[EarnestAl]

When you insert your image it is anchored To Character; this gives flexibility, it shows your insertion point but you can move the image with your mouse to where you want it. If you don’t want that, you can right-click on the image, select Anchor > As character which will keep it in position within the text just like a letter, but it will take a line the height of the image.

For the caption border, open the template that you are using, open the Sidebar (Ctrl+F5) and select Styles icon. At the top of the pane select the Frame Styles icon. Right-click on Graphics and select Modify, in the dialog that opens, select the Borders tab, click the preset Set No Borders. While you are modifying things, click on the Wrap tab and untick the box labelled Allow overlap, click OK. Save your template. In a document based on it, when you add a picture it won’t overlap another and when you add a caption to an image, it won’t have a border.

I recommend downloading the Writer Guide and using it for reference. Cheers, Al

[libre_office_user]

Thanks! This seems to be exactly what I was looking for originally. I will try it out.