You can easily add a text caption to an image or picture and then place a box around the image-caption combination. This can be achieved by the HTML code. But, this can also be achieved easily using a program such as Microsoft Word. In fact, even an image-editing software can be used to achieve this objective.
The image with a text caption and a box will appear something like this, when we complete the detailed steps explained below using Microsoft Word:
(This image has been taken from the Fox News for the sake of illustration; but the text caption and box have been added using Microsoft Word through the following steps.)
Let’s see how to do it in Microsoft Word. Proceed as under:
(1) Start Microsoft Word. Open a new document. Let it be a blank document with fully white background. Insert sufficient number of blank lines by just pressing the Enter key repeatedly so that the background should continue to remain white.
(2) Now place the cursor somewhere in the middle of the visible area of the main window in Word.
(3) Insert a new table with one column and two rows. You can do it by clicking on Table à Insert à Table. The AutoFit behavior of the new table should be selected as “AutoFit to contents”. This can be done from the Insert Table dialog box used to insert the table in the first instance. In fact, this full step can be achieved from the Insert Table dialog box shown in the following image:
(4) Now right-click anywhere in the first row, and from the context menu select Table Properties. In the Table Properties dialog box that appears on the screen, select the Cell tab, and then click on the Options button. You’ll see the Cell Options dialog box. Now, under the Cell margins section of this dialog box, unselect “Same as the whole table” option i.e., remove the check mark from the check box. Then make all the four margins, namely, Top, Bottom, Left and Right as 0 (zero). See the figure below that displays these options:
(5) Now copy the image that around which you want to place a caption and a box. This can be done by opening the image in any image-editing software or in free Microsoft Paint program, selecting / highlighting the image and then pressing Ctrl + C keys together.
(6) Paste this copied image in the first of the two rows of the table. Since the first row of the table has the “AutoFit to contents” property set and secondly since all the four margins have been set to zero, the picture will fill up the full area of the first row of the table completely.
(7) In the second row of the table, type whatever text you want to show as caption to the above image. Use whatever font type, font color or font size you prefer. You can center-align this text in the second row or left align it, as per your choice. Just take care that the width of this second row should not exceed that of the first row; and, if necessary, press Enter to break the caption text in two/three lines in this second row.
(8) If you want to change the border color of the above table from black to some other color (such as grey), do it from the Table Properties.
(9) Also suitably adjust the table size, the row sizes, etc., and other table properties, if necessary.
(10) Press the Print-Screen (prt sc) key to capture the screen image. You can also capture the screen image using some image-editing software. Since, the background of the page is completely white, you’ll have the above image with caption and box in the foreground; while the remaining area will be blank.
(11) Open the Microsoft Paint program or any other image-editing software of your choice. Past the above screen-capture image in a new image in this software / program.
(12) Using the rectangular selection tool, select the original image with text and box around them, and then copy this combination with the Ctrl + C keys.
(13) Paste this copied image combination in a new image in the Paint or other image-editing software. The image dimensions of the new image should be equal to the dimensions of the above combination. In some programs, pressing Ctrl + Shift + V (in GIMP software) or Ctrl + Alt + V (in Paint.NET software), can automatically create a new image with the copied image dimensions getting automatically pasted there.
(14) Save this image. It will now look like the image with caption and box as shown at the beginning of this article.
That’s it! Now, you’ve the image with a caption and with a box around it. It looks nice and at the same time it gives proper information to the users about the image through its text caption.
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Know of any software out there that automates this process? I know, the steps are not difficult but I have some people that I work with that have use for captioning just like this but I swear will not be able to follow these directions. I am looking for something that allows them to type in the caption they want, click a button and have the final result- looking like your example- be created for them. Any ideas?
Please see my subsequent article, Add text, caption or caption bubble to images, pictures or photos. This other article explains alternative ways to add text or caption to an image by click of a mouse button. Moreover, you can also do it using good image editing software such as Photoshop. I hope it helps.
Great tutorial.
This is really very helpful.
Thanks for sharing.