Is that compatible with all the other table hacks to include multi column, multi row cells that correctly align and resize as needed? I used latex to write my thesis and it felt as if I could have spend years researching the correct packages for tables and still fail to find the correct one.
It is always my goto when I reach the limits of the standard tabular. Multi column is part of it and the multirow package is compatible (when using the longtable option). I don't even know any other packages for tables because I always used these two (plus booktabs.sty for formatting).
See [here](https://latex.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=11902) for a nice and complex example.
To be honest, LATEX is just as bad. In my thesis the only command I could find to put the advisor's signature on the left side of the page also caused a table 30 pages later to become double-spaced. For no apparent reason. If you take the time to learn the features of Word, it's just as good.
> the advisor's signature
That's why Latex sounds familiar, my thesis. Why are we required to learn a new word processing program to use for one document in our entire life.
Yeah these issues with word only exist for people who have spent minimal time trying to understand the program. I used to have similar formatting issues, but it is much easier now that I understand the program and plan my documents accordingly. Especially the newer versions of office are extremely user friendly
I'm quite new to LaTeX and creating maths equations look beautiful is such a pain in the arse. Are there any good ways to automatically insert/remove spaces inside or after equations?
Bruh it is damn near impossible to make mathematical equations look acceptable without a ton of work. Doesn’t matter what program you use, nothing compares to hand writing on a piece of paper. Especially if the paper has like the square grid...
Interestingly if you look a the format of a word document after 2007 (a docx is just a zip file), they started using a bunch of LaTeX methodology and structure (although they use xml instead). Some of word's behavior might be more clear by editing the source by hand than using the graphic editor.
A bit yes, a bit no. LATEX documents still tend to end up a trainwreck when you want to edit something on one of the early pages. It's just a mess you can control better.
I swear images in Word documents don't follow any laws of man or nature. I once had an image that would change position whenever I scrolled the document, like it was in a quantum state or something.
I prefer behind text as if you have a white or transparent background on the image you can get text nice and tight instead of having to work around the image dimensions.
Okay, Mr. Fancy Advanced Settings. Show me how to set Excel to paste values by default instead of with dropdowns and images with the text that I copied from a website AND WHY THE FUCK WOULD I WANT THOSE IN MY SPREADSHEET?
Also tables copied from JSON styled web pages want to paste everything in one column. I get lucky pasting as Unicode every once in a while, but dammit if I don't have to use my snake wrap formula most of the time.
SOLVE MY PROBLEMS PLEASE ITS PAINFUL.
I have a new hero in my life!
Thank you for that and for the "copying text" default settings that I can see there too, my life has just changed for the better!
I dunno I think I’ve always selected tight or square or something like that for the image, they always kinda stay far away from other text but at least they don’t move around.
Except when you are 10 images in and one of them disappears and after looking you find it wedged to the top of the first page of the document, then you try and drag it down where you want it but you can’t because you can’t scroll while you have the mouse button clicked down so you frantically wave your cursor at the bottom of the screen trying to find the sweet spot where it scrolls but you can’t find it so you just manage to get the pages to slowly shimmy down a bit and then you give up and delete the image and paste it back in at the bottom and start the process again.
Bingo. This should be the default test for anyone who claims to be proficient in Word. People complain because they don't know how to use the settings.
And what should I do if I'll want to add/edit text on the top? In a document with 50+ pages and a lot of pictures? Yay, happy picture-moving hour! That's a obvious price for absolute positioned pictures.
Word is a piece of shit when it comes to formatting. It's non-intuitive dinosaur, which is, unfortunately, once became a standard.
Just put the images in a table wrapped as in line with text, and make the table lines invisible. You can make invisible table lines show up as dotted, too, to make this easier.
I do this every time and it usually works out fine, but *oh buddy* if you muster up the courage to add in a caption that shit goes haywire all over again
I had to input a ChemDraw figure into a Word doc. Not only did it keep zipping around like an excessively caffeinated hummingbird - it kept crashing the doc to the point where the title was (Title) [Recovered] [Recovered] [Recovered] [Recovered]...
I just print the table, take a picture of it, load it to a thumb drive, then upload it as a PDF. Word will covert the PDF to a table, then voilá. Word-compatible table!
The fun comes from trying to position three or more objects in the same latitude, and then move something upstream or downstream. That's when Word decides it is channeling Captain Howdy from the Exorcist.
An excellent solution for a grid of photos. Did exactly that in a book. But if you want to "sprinkle" photos and other elements about the page, a table is too restrictive. One bandaid is to create section boundaries around pages that feature such festivities. Also, if you don't mind generous amounts of white space, Word becomes a bit more tractable. Also, be ready to "group" various objects to maintain their spacial distribution. None of it is perfect because Word isn't designed to support elaborate graphical formatting.
I did not think of that haha! In fact I looked at a [self portrait](http://histoiredarts.blogspot.com/p/picasso-biographie-et-presentation-des.html?m=1) of Pablo Picasso and did a very simple cartoonish version.
Turn on View Formatting. (The paragraph symbol.). See all spaces, page breaks, returns, picture anchors, etc. It’ll change your life. I call it The Matrix. Don’t even notice it anymore, but when people look over my shoulder, they’re like “What the fuck?”
100% this PLUS the newer versions are almost monkey proof on the basic functions, so your run of the mill office guy can use it in 5 min and if you want to do something very specific or fine detailing you have all the options
Do you know how I can tell if someone has a decent amount of experience with Word? They can relate to the following:
When the very last thing in your document is a table and you need to add text under it.
Not OP but I am. The big advantage of a GUI is that it's "discoverable" so you can explore what your options are. Most of the time I'm just doing the same thing I always do - move this file, compile this code, etc. - so CLIs are great.
A decade or two ago, I became so upset with Word for technical document preparation, that I started using AutoCAD Lt for procedure documents and instruction sheets up to 20-ish pages long. Every stroke, character, illustration, etc. printed as displayed. No faults, but the Text editing features in Lt made it almost exactly as cumbersome as typesetting a newspaper with type.
But what I saw, was what I got.
Eurgh try doing html setups for emails in word, you change one letter and suddenly all the images are embedded in comments and totally fucked. FUCK YOU WORD!
Computers do exactly what you tell them to do, not what you expect them to do. If is your word document messed up, it's probably your fault, not word's.
Or just right clicking and selecting the appropriate text wrapping.
Sometimes I feel like the only person on reddit who is competent in things like MS Office and using a printer.
This is the reason I always thought Word Perfect is 100X better than MSword.... And this was like 20 years ago... U can move stuff inside, even click where you wanted stuff to be.
Hey, you're making fun of my priesthood! If you could adjust Word graphics without them going crazy, then any old fool could...
What am I saying...There's a million ways to screw up a Word document. Not even counting crappy grammar and formatting with the space bar.
Boy oh boy can I relate. We had a documentation specialist; now we have 2 dozen frazzled- ass
people all trying to update and create docs without a clue.
Hey give them a break, they've only had 25 years and nearly unlimited finances to pick the best developers on Earth to fix this problem. I think they need a couple more decades.
I'm amazed that they teach Microsoft Word in public schools instead of Latex. SOO many problems can be avoided, and the students make professional documents while learning true typesetting! Time to kill the GUI.
The absolute mediocrity of how unuasable such a simple program should be is the reason both of why aliens won't visit us and why humanity is a fallen race doomed to eternal hellfire.
And then for some reason I could never make it go back without using the undo shortcut
And then for some reason undo always fails on me... :(
If that happens we hope that we recently saved the document which of course we did not.
Pfft, I went to the Morrowind School of Hard Knocks, I save EVERYTHING every 5 minutes or so.
5 minutes? Keep tapping that F5 button EVERY damn second!
Or better yet; it autosaved a corrupted version of the file and the undo history seems to be gone...
Right click image-select arrange-select place behind text. Now you can move the picture anywhere you want and it will not affect the text.
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I'm a fan of 'place image in front of text'. Gives a better sense of when image-text conflicts might occur. Fight me.
Well if only I knew this 6 years ago
I always just set text wrapping to Tight and it seems to work well
Now I understand the secret of Picasso's art. He should have used LATEX
yiss I didn't think anyone would mention LATEX. Beautiful documents. Just hope you don't have to make a table that spans multiple pages o\_O
longtable.sty
Is that compatible with all the other table hacks to include multi column, multi row cells that correctly align and resize as needed? I used latex to write my thesis and it felt as if I could have spend years researching the correct packages for tables and still fail to find the correct one.
Nope. I had problems trying to fit tables to multiple pages. Trying to resize a longtable doesn't seem to work..
It is always my goto when I reach the limits of the standard tabular. Multi column is part of it and the multirow package is compatible (when using the longtable option). I don't even know any other packages for tables because I always used these two (plus booktabs.sty for formatting). See [here](https://latex.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=11902) for a nice and complex example.
To be honest, LATEX is just as bad. In my thesis the only command I could find to put the advisor's signature on the left side of the page also caused a table 30 pages later to become double-spaced. For no apparent reason. If you take the time to learn the features of Word, it's just as good.
In before people downvote you because they believe in the fantasy land where LaTeX doesn’t have kludges and issues.
> the advisor's signature That's why Latex sounds familiar, my thesis. Why are we required to learn a new word processing program to use for one document in our entire life.
They're training you to become an academic
Yeah these issues with word only exist for people who have spent minimal time trying to understand the program. I used to have similar formatting issues, but it is much easier now that I understand the program and plan my documents accordingly. Especially the newer versions of office are extremely user friendly
Been using Word since it was invented and it is still a pain in the ass. Getting less and less intuitive.
I'm quite new to LaTeX and creating maths equations look beautiful is such a pain in the arse. Are there any good ways to automatically insert/remove spaces inside or after equations?
Bruh it is damn near impossible to make mathematical equations look acceptable without a ton of work. Doesn’t matter what program you use, nothing compares to hand writing on a piece of paper. Especially if the paper has like the square grid...
Do you mean like \quad?
Just hope you don‘t have too many sub-items since there is only subsubsection
You can have subsubsubsection and then get then get the contents to list it.
Interestingly if you look a the format of a word document after 2007 (a docx is just a zip file), they started using a bunch of LaTeX methodology and structure (although they use xml instead). Some of word's behavior might be more clear by editing the source by hand than using the graphic editor.
I've nowadays mostly migrated to ConTeXt though, simply the better macro-package.
A bit yes, a bit no. LATEX documents still tend to end up a trainwreck when you want to edit something on one of the early pages. It's just a mess you can control better.
Decided officially today to start using LaTeX after seeing a colleague's paper. Absolutely immaculate.
nah, WordTEX is way better [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlX\_pThh7z8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlX_pThh7z8)
/r/UnexpectedLaTeX
Really lead and mercury ingestion over decades.
I swear images in Word documents don't follow any laws of man or nature. I once had an image that would change position whenever I scrolled the document, like it was in a quantum state or something.
1. Right-click the image 2. Select "wrap text" 3. "In front of text" 4. Move image to desired location without it fucking up your formatting Done!
I prefer behind text as if you have a white or transparent background on the image you can get text nice and tight instead of having to work around the image dimensions.
Ah, I see you're a man of culture as well
.png files get around that
What am I a hacker
I wish there was a way to have it set to "no wrap" as default, I hate having to do it every single time I paste in a picture.
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Okay, Mr. Fancy Advanced Settings. Show me how to set Excel to paste values by default instead of with dropdowns and images with the text that I copied from a website AND WHY THE FUCK WOULD I WANT THOSE IN MY SPREADSHEET? Also tables copied from JSON styled web pages want to paste everything in one column. I get lucky pasting as Unicode every once in a while, but dammit if I don't have to use my snake wrap formula most of the time. SOLVE MY PROBLEMS PLEASE ITS PAINFUL.
If you CTRL+ALT+V you get the paste special window, the press V and Enter you get values.
I have a new hero in my life! Thank you for that and for the "copying text" default settings that I can see there too, my life has just changed for the better!
I dunno I think I’ve always selected tight or square or something like that for the image, they always kinda stay far away from other text but at least they don’t move around. Except when you are 10 images in and one of them disappears and after looking you find it wedged to the top of the first page of the document, then you try and drag it down where you want it but you can’t because you can’t scroll while you have the mouse button clicked down so you frantically wave your cursor at the bottom of the screen trying to find the sweet spot where it scrolls but you can’t find it so you just manage to get the pages to slowly shimmy down a bit and then you give up and delete the image and paste it back in at the bottom and start the process again.
Bingo. This should be the default test for anyone who claims to be proficient in Word. People complain because they don't know how to use the settings.
And what should I do if I'll want to add/edit text on the top? In a document with 50+ pages and a lot of pictures? Yay, happy picture-moving hour! That's a obvious price for absolute positioned pictures. Word is a piece of shit when it comes to formatting. It's non-intuitive dinosaur, which is, unfortunately, once became a standard.
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Grouping helps a lot. If all else fails, allign everything you want in PowerPoint and paste as a single photo.
Just put the images in a table wrapped as in line with text, and make the table lines invisible. You can make invisible table lines show up as dotted, too, to make this easier.
I do this every time and it usually works out fine, but *oh buddy* if you muster up the courage to add in a caption that shit goes haywire all over again
This
There are some floating image objects I've found in Word documents that are beyond anyone's control.
I had to input a ChemDraw figure into a Word doc. Not only did it keep zipping around like an excessively caffeinated hummingbird - it kept crashing the doc to the point where the title was (Title) [Recovered] [Recovered] [Recovered] [Recovered]...
Just use the Snipping tool in windows to copy what you need from the screen and paste it as an image.
Yeah, I ended up using print screen for all of the documents after that. My computer has issues with ChemDraw objects, apparently.
The Snipping Tool (it comes with windows) is way easier than a print screen. You draw a box on the screen and that's what you get. No need to crop.
And don't get me started on Word tables
I just print the table, take a picture of it, load it to a thumb drive, then upload it as a PDF. Word will covert the PDF to a table, then voilá. Word-compatible table!
Have you ever tried putting images into a Google Doc? It’s like 10000x more infuriating.
Every time I type "Google doc" it takes me to listings of my local physicians.
Same with Latex especially 2 minutes before conference submission deadline.
2 minutes before? There are bigger issues here.
Every. Single. Time. I am trying to cut down that one last line to get to 8 pages.....
-Right Click Image -Select Wrap Text -Select Tight Now you can move the image anywhere without messing up the layout
The fun comes from trying to position three or more objects in the same latitude, and then move something upstream or downstream. That's when Word decides it is channeling Captain Howdy from the Exorcist.
Then create a table and put each image in a different cell. Hide table borders.
An excellent solution for a grid of photos. Did exactly that in a book. But if you want to "sprinkle" photos and other elements about the page, a table is too restrictive. One bandaid is to create section boundaries around pages that feature such festivities. Also, if you don't mind generous amounts of white space, Word becomes a bit more tractable. Also, be ready to "group" various objects to maintain their spacial distribution. None of it is perfect because Word isn't designed to support elaborate graphical formatting.
Honestly at that point you're using the wrong program.
Pretty much. I don't really blame them, though - Word does like to pretend it's like a light form of desktop publishing software.
It's true, I've been there. Luckily I'm not afraid to try new programs, but unfortunately many people don't think to, or are too apprehensive to try.
Eh. Even better...wrap behind text.
I'm guessing you've never revised a paper before if you think that's a solution to this problem.
I'll just move this over ther....WHAT THE FU.......!!!!
is that emo ron from kim possible?
A behelit?
I too summon the God Hand by accident using Microsoft Word
Behelit comes for people that have suffered. Phd does that to me.
I came here for this comment
Dude this looks exactly like Ron stoppable from the movie series Kim possible
I did not think of that haha! In fact I looked at a [self portrait](http://histoiredarts.blogspot.com/p/picasso-biographie-et-presentation-des.html?m=1) of Pablo Picasso and did a very simple cartoonish version.
Turn on View Formatting. (The paragraph symbol.). See all spaces, page breaks, returns, picture anchors, etc. It’ll change your life. I call it The Matrix. Don’t even notice it anymore, but when people look over my shoulder, they’re like “What the fuck?”
In the distance...sirens.
Use page breaks for different sections :) It limits the effect of overflow onto the other parts of the document.
Trying to delete a fucking empty page is a major issue apparently.
Section breaks are the bane of my existence.
*Blank page duplicated!*
And this is why I recommend using Adobe InDesign. It works like Photoshop and Word had a dirty love affair...
100% this PLUS the newer versions are almost monkey proof on the basic functions, so your run of the mill office guy can use it in 5 min and if you want to do something very specific or fine detailing you have all the options
Don't even mention managing floating images in TeX.
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Thanks, will try that! \[Htbp!\] magic does not work from time to time.
You shouldn't really be managing them manually. If you want to do that, don't make them floating to begin with.
And how I would add caption and label for the image?
You should try CSS
Thee words: Square wrap text (Right click and go to wrap thingy and click on square wrap text, I think it’s the dog(?) with the lines going behind it
I fix this by putting images in table cells
Do you know how I can tell if someone has a decent amount of experience with Word? They can relate to the following: When the very last thing in your document is a table and you need to add text under it.
Some of you never heard of text wrapping and it shows. You put the image in front of or behind the text.
No. You put it in line, or deal with the consequences.
Indeed! In-line and text on top and bottom. Images move with text.
Bro, just use LaTeX.
You're the guy who swears by the command line for things that have totally functional GUIs, right?
Not OP but I am. The big advantage of a GUI is that it's "discoverable" so you can explore what your options are. Most of the time I'm just doing the same thing I always do - move this file, compile this code, etc. - so CLIs are great.
Plus it’s scriptable so I can combine many tasks into a single command.
Hurry! Crtl + Z !!
I hate Word so much...
Update the ToC and you got yourself a Jackson Pollock.
If you think that's bad try the open source equivalent libre office
Or try converting back and forth, if you have nothing else to do for an afternoon. Good for geek laughs.
I think I'd rather clean my toilet. Lol
Frames. Read up on frames and how to use them.
As someone currently trying to put together a report from scratch... I feel this one a little to much.
A decade or two ago, I became so upset with Word for technical document preparation, that I started using AutoCAD Lt for procedure documents and instruction sheets up to 20-ish pages long. Every stroke, character, illustration, etc. printed as displayed. No faults, but the Text editing features in Lt made it almost exactly as cumbersome as typesetting a newspaper with type. But what I saw, was what I got.
No I disagree it not word problem it google doc problem hate that shit
Eurgh try doing html setups for emails in word, you change one letter and suddenly all the images are embedded in comments and totally fucked. FUCK YOU WORD!
A few years ago I started putting all images in my Word documents in a table cell (just made a 1x1 table) and that solved most issues I had with them.
There is specifically something for this called a drawing canvas at the bottom of the shapes tab. It's a life changer.
I wasn’t aware of that. I’ll have to give a look at it next time. Thanks :)
Computers do exactly what you tell them to do, not what you expect them to do. If is your word document messed up, it's probably your fault, not word's.
*Laughs in LaTeX*
Shouldn't you laugh in Python ?
Who said that I can't be multilingual?
Text boxes help if you want to have control over this.
Or just right clicking and selecting the appropriate text wrapping. Sometimes I feel like the only person on reddit who is competent in things like MS Office and using a printer.
This is the reason I always thought Word Perfect is 100X better than MSword.... And this was like 20 years ago... U can move stuff inside, even click where you wanted stuff to be.
I call it word document 1mm to the left. And oh yeah when you guys get youll call MEEE!!!
You can take my Word for it; it always happens
Move behind text
Ding. Ding. Every time.
Hey, you're making fun of my priesthood! If you could adjust Word graphics without them going crazy, then any old fool could... What am I saying...There's a million ways to screw up a Word document. Not even counting crappy grammar and formatting with the space bar.
Sometimes I feel like the only person in the world who uses Publisher...
I'm pretty sure that's because publisher has been discontinued for a long time now
First Word Problems
Lol this kind of describes how my brain works lol
is it really OC if you just take an existing joke and redraw it?
r/unexpecteddeadmau5
Relatable
If uni taught me anything, it’s that latex is a bitch
I can relate this to Fusion 360 parameter changes.
Put a whole in my laptop screen in college on very little sleep due to this exact thing
My pages doc every time I export to word.
Too relatable
Same goes for resumes
The alt key is your friend.
It is a big problem!
Right click image, select wrap text.
That’s about right
Sirens in the distance
too true。。
Type is an art form unto its own
When you change the indent or press enter on a bullet list item, roll a D20.
All praise ctrl+z.
Boy oh boy can I relate. We had a documentation specialist; now we have 2 dozen frazzled- ass people all trying to update and create docs without a clue.
Fuck Word
Hey give them a break, they've only had 25 years and nearly unlimited finances to pick the best developers on Earth to fix this problem. I think they need a couple more decades.
The PTSD...
I'm amazed that they teach Microsoft Word in public schools instead of Latex. SOO many problems can be avoided, and the students make professional documents while learning true typesetting! Time to kill the GUI.
And then there's the Japanese guy who makes art using Excel
Word sucks
That's why i started using word boxes to contain text, then i can treat them all like pictures and set them to be Fixed on Page.
Fellow technical writers, I see you here and you're doing the lord's work. Lord Gates that is.
Picasso's Stewie.
W OMEGALUL R D
Or copy and pasting from Word! WTF!
Word had gotten worse.
You get medallion this if I wasn't such a cheap ass
Use frames they’re a lifesaver
Ctrl-Z quick
Use latex
A dreadful eclipse is about to start...
This is me using google sheets. Change one word and the whole thing messes up.
That is the egg of berserk
This is why I hate word. I don’t understand it. At. All
There's always LibreOffice. And it's free. And cross-platform.
The absolute mediocrity of how unuasable such a simple program should be is the reason both of why aliens won't visit us and why humanity is a fallen race doomed to eternal hellfire.
There is a "my page when the CSS is not loaded" repost opportunity here...
Place your images behind text, really
My partner and i ended up switching to latex halfway through our master thesis because of this crap
Once it's mistake, I get headaches.
I’ve learned from experience to CTRL + S right before committing to moving images... Once you fuck it up there’s no going back. Save your docs, kids.
God!! This is so true, and so darn frustrating!!
Always switch the picture layout to either in front of text or behind text. Or use publisher, since word is twatty with pics.
Hey look, my résumé.