PhD Layout: images in text, which programme?

[Karin @ Mintpark]

Hi, as per header I'm not sure what programme to use to format and layout my dissertation:

I have the text and footnotes (via endnote) in word and need to insert images in the running text, and quite a lot of them for that matter.

Alas, word seems incapable of dealing with images in textboxes or otherwise, it keeps doing stupid stuff and crashing.

I don't want to put everything into Illustrator or similar by hand.

Apple's Pages doesn't cope well with my endnote footnotes and with word styles.

Is there a golden bullet out there so that I can use my word doc as is and add images without loosing stuff or doing 300 pages by hand (and still be able to change the odd footnote or paragraph after I've put in the images)? Any help or indeed confirmation that there's no handy solution would be much welcome!

Cheers, Karin

[Herbie]

I'm not sure I understand wholly. You already have spots to put the images and plan on inserting them swiftly, by doing something like CMD+F and then replace all?

Word shouldn't crash with a Mac. . . . OpenOffice is an open source program. Perhaps someone's made a script for something such as this?

Edit* On that note, you may also be able to work on it in Preview.

Edited January 26, 2011 by chuianne

[aginath]

Alas, word seems incapable of dealing with images in textboxes or otherwise, it keeps doing stupid stuff and crashing.

There are so many questions here...

How large are the source images (file size and resolution? Can they be reduced without compromising quality?

Are you on a Mac or PC?

What version of OS are you running?

What version of Word are you running?

Word 2007/2010 (PC) or 2008 (Mac) shouldn't crash with images unless you have 20M images that are 100+ dpi.

[lilacpear]

I don't want to put everything into Illustrator or similar by hand.

[...]

I have the text and footnotes (via endnote) in word and need to insert images in the running text, and quite a lot of them for that matter.

Have you used Adobe InDesign? It is mammoth software specifically designed to handle mammoth files with multiple links to mammoth images. It's very efficient and produces very professional-looking results. It does require some time to learn, but if you already know Illustrator well, jumping to InDesign should be relatively painless.

There is simply no word processing software out there that handles image+text smoothly. If you have loads of images, you will be better off with InDesign. Images are merely linked to the file, not copied unto it, which makes the ID file much smaller and easier to handle (read: less crashes) and makes the updating process easier (should you decide to edit one of the images after having inserted it, ID will automatically "update" that image for you in the file - no need to re-insert it).

Apple's Pages doesn't cope well with my endnote footnotes and with word styles.

I used Pages for my master's thesis and it handled footnotes and word/paragraph styles nicely. I did not use Endnote then, though.

Is there a golden bullet out there so that I can use my word doc as is and add images without loosing stuff or doing 300 pages by hand (and still be able to change the odd footnote or paragraph after I've put in the images)? Any help or indeed confirmation that there's no handy solution would be much welcome!

Well, if you're several hundred pages into your dissertation in Word, transferring to any alternative method will not be painless. However, InDesign will import your MS Word file AND most of your existing word and paragraph styles (they will be converted to InDesign styles). I haven't tested importing footnotes yet, but ID handles footnotes better than Word or Pages.

lp

Edited March 25, 2011 by lilacpear

[lilacpear]

Oh, and you're on a Mac. Macs and Adobe CS software tend to play well with each other.

lp