Aoraki Macintosh User Group Home Page

Snippets from Previous Meetings

November 25 2005

MacBASICS

LABELLING PHOTOS FOR E-MAIL

Sometimes you may wish to have a caption included on a photo (for e-mailing or otherwise). Tony showed how this can be easily done in AppleWorks:
  1. Open an AppleWorks Drawing document and insert the photo.
  2. Click on the Text Tool create a text frame and type the label or caption:
  3. Drag the label onto the photo.
  4. Click on both the label and the photo so that both are selected (as below), and press Apple+G to group them as a single object. The black corner 'handles' on the label will then disappear, indicating that it is grouped with the photo.

TEXT WRAP

Sheryl gave an overview of various aspects of TEXT WRAP, covering such aspects as inserting graphics into text documents as either in-line 'text' items or as 'floating' graphic items, and setting the text to 'wrap' around floating graphics.

In AppleWorks the text wrap facility is controlled by selecting it from the Options menu. The small window which then appears gives the following options: With None selected, the inserted graphic will appear in front of the document's text (which isn't much use unless the text is so unimportant that it only serves as a background!).

The Regular button will cause a rectangle-shaped opening in the text around the graphic, regardless of the graphic's shape, and the text will fit itself around this rectangle.

The Irregular button causes the text to wrap closely to the graphic, whatever shape it is Ð if a circular object was inserted, then the text would form itself closely to the circular shape.

The Gutter quantity controls the gap between the edge of the graphic and the text Ð a gutter of 0 means that no gap is left. The '5' value (above) is the AppleWorks default, and represents a small gap. The amount can be adjusted as desired.

AppleWorks Text Wrap can also be controlled from the Button Bar by adding the (from the AppleWorks/Preferences/Button Bar menu) the appropriate buttons:

These are, respectively, No Wrap, Regular and Text Wrap, the latter being the same as the Irregular button in the window above - don't know why they give different names to buttons which perform the same function! Another seeming anomaly is that although they are text formatting features, these buttons are found in the Drawing section of the buttons Ð this is because they are associated with the graphic objects rather than the text, and appear in the Button Bar with the other Drawing tools/facilities when the arrow pointer is selected.

Word also offers the similar text wrap features, depending on the version. Word 2004 for Mac (v11.0) shows this section in its Formatting Palette when the graphic is selected:

E-MAILING

Sheryl led a general session which included explanation and discussion on a number of aspects of e-mailing, including setting up of attachments, suspected hoaxes, setting rules, and how different e-mail applications perform particular tasks. Members contributed with a variety of ideas and queries, and many useful suggestions were made.
REMINDERS

Next AMUG Evening meeting will be on Friday February 24, 2006 7.30pm.

Next AMUG Daytime Meeting is to be advised

Committee Meeting on Mactropolis:  to be advised

Regards to all....

Secretary: Tony Climo, Aoraki MacIntosh Users Group