how to change inline picture baseline?

Question

how to change inline picture baseline?

I often include small inline pictures in my chemistry texts. They are for example safety pictograms that I add when I mention some dangerous compound. While small, these pictures are often a bit larger than the text line height.

The problem is that the bottom of the picture is aligned with the text baseline. This is a problem of balance: the top of the picture is then far too high compared to the text.

What I would like to achieve is to vertically center the picture with respect to the text line. This means lowering it quite a bit.

I had hoped to use Format>Font>Baseline>lower, but that command is disabled (unsurprisingly as a picture is not text).

Is there a solution? Switching the picture to be floating instead of inline is not a solution, as it then in practice prevents the text from being edited, lest the picture be moved away from its proper location in the text.

Thanks for any help.

I'm not sure my description of the problem is clear enough. If warranted, I can improve it with screen shots.

MacBook Pro 17", Mac OS X (10.6.6)

Posted on Jan 20, 2011 2:35 AM

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Answer 1

Jan 20, 2011 2:49 AM in response to Jean-Denis Muys

Baseline shift does work on inline images, you just have to drag over them as you would any other text.

Peter

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Answer 2

Jan 20, 2011 3:22 PM in response to PeterBreis0807

Well thanks. It's quite misleading that simply selecting the inline picture is not enough.

To be completely accurate, what you wrote is not true: if you drag over the image, and only the image, then baseline shift commands are still disabled. However if you drag over the image AND a text character, then the command is enabled and you can shift the image, together with that selected character.

In most cases, this is OK: this other character can be a space, which will not look different when shifted. Additionally, as a last step, if that character is a problem, it can be deleted: the image will stay shifted by itself.

So that's workable. It still seems to me Pages could do better.

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Answer 3

Jan 20, 2011 7:43 PM in response to Jean-Denis Muys

Selecting the image directly selects the image itself.

With the image selected you can change its outline stroke, background color, scale etc.

How would you suggest the two methods be better differentiated?

Peter

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Answer 4

fruhulda

Level 6

15,167 points

Jan 20, 2011 10:04 PM in response to Jean-Denis Muys

I did a test and I could select only the image and change the baseline shift. I used the option in the Inspector > Text tab. The image was of course inline.

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Answer 5

Jan 21, 2011 1:28 AM in response to fruhulda

Fruhulda,

Thanks: you are right, using the text inspector More pane works: you can select the image only and shift it from there.

So now the issue is only an issue of consistency: the same command is enabled, and works, in the inspector, but is disabled in the menu.

Peter,

I'm not sure I understand your question. Which "two methods" do you have in mind? Let me describe my expectations:

- I expect to be able to shift text vertically on the line. It turns out I am right. To do so, the user selects the text to shift and applies one of the command in the Format>Font>Baseline menu (eg Raise, Lower). Alternatively, as Fruhulda reminded me, the user can use the More pane of the text inspector. All this is documented in Pages '09 user manual on page 82.

- I expect to be able to shift an inline image vertically on the line too. It turns out I am also right. To be consistent, the user would select the "thing" s/he wants to shift, ie the image, then would choose Raise/Lower, in exactly the same way as with text. Alternatively s/he could use the More pane of the text inspector.

Yet it turns out that, out of those FOUR scenarios, only THREE work:

1- shift selected text using the More pane of the text inspector: WORKS
2- shift selected text using the Format>Font>Baseline menu: WORKS
3- shift selected IMAGE using the More pane of the text inspector: WORKS
4- shift selected IMAGE using the Format>Font>Baseline menu: DOESN'T WORK

That scenario 4 doesn't work is not consistent. It should work. As a user-interface designer, I consider this misleading behavior a bug.

Note that you can select the image in three ways: by dragging over it, by clicking on it, or by putting the caret just before (resp after) it, then typing shift-right arrow (resp shift left arrow). As far as I could tell, it doesn't make any difference how you select the image.

All in all, after going to the very bottom of this barrel, I am grateful to both of you: I can now shift my images in a satisfactory way (using the inspector). Many thanks.

Jean-Denis

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Answer 6

Jan 21, 2011 1:47 AM in response to Jean-Denis Muys

Jean-Denis

If you are looking for user interface inconsistencies in Pages we can help you find many more.

However:

4- shift selected IMAGE using the Format>Font>Baseline menu: DOESN'T WORK

is not one of them. It works but in only small increments. In fact it is extremely tedious to use this method as it is slow to react and has only a minor effect.

The 2 methods I am talking about are differentiating whether you want to act on the contents of the inline image box/shape or the position of the box itself. Just clicking on the object selects the box/shape/contents, when in this case you want to select it just as if you selected a glyph/text character in the text line so you can alter its baseline/kerning etc.

Peter

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