InDesign captions

Hi all, I have a few questions regarding generating captions in InDesign CS5 (Windows).
I am designing school leavers books. Most pages are images with captions beneath, which for the past few years I have imported and generated respectively via a script, but would quite like to try CS5s live distribute and caption features to achieve the same results. But I have a few niggling problems -
I have a grid of student photographs, with their names beneath as captions (taken from the filename). How can I remove the extension after the filename (ie John Smith.jpg should be John Smith)?
Secondly, although I can control the vertical placing of the caption via the offset setting, my captions are all appearing a few cm to the right of the image, even though they are meant to be directly beneath, the width of the frame containing the image. I have dragged a whole group from Mini Bridge and then created the relevant sized grid using the arrow keys, but can't seem to stop this.
Also, some pages are galleries made up of a few images, for example a school trip, and text beneath. This text is generally longer than a filename ought to be so I have been trying to add them by entering this text into the description of the jpeg in Photoshop. I have been creating the captions as above but using the 'Description' text as opposed to the 'Name' text. It works - kind of. However the caption only appears on one line, no matter how long it is, with the tracking seemingly being automatically altered to get the caption no matter how long into the one line.
Thanks for any suggestions, I'm quite liking the features in CS5 so far, although it seems quite temperamental (lots of freezing/crashing when doing small things, for example modifying a colour/style)!

I had the same problem with the captions being placed to the right. Now I have an empty caption box stored as a Library item, and I just drag it below a photo when I need a caption. Got that from this article (which I thought was very helpful):
http://indesignsecrets.com/store-live-captions-in-libraries.php
Maybe you'll find that useful too.
Thanks, Phyllis
P.S. That also allows you to have an object style on the caption box automatically (which I found helpful).

Similar Messages

InDesign XMP Not Working with Live Caption

I have images in InDesign CS5 (Mac OS X 10.6..), and although they have XMP data (Set from Bridge), when I set with Live Caption, my caption always says "<No data from link>". I've set up captions in Objects > Captions... > Caption Setup - metadata to "Description" and the XMP data doesn't get put into the caption. I can see the XMP information in Links > Image > XMP File Info... "Description". That's Fine. I've tried other user-defined fields, "Title, Keywords" and none work in Live Caption. I've also been updating the images after setting the XMP data in Bridge. I've also just deleted the images and re-placed them. Still can't get live caption to work.
I also saw a related thread where a user set file XMP via photoshop (CS5), which I also tried. When I do that, InDesign CS5 doesn't see the XMP data (via Links > XMP File Info). I can see it if set via Bridge, but can't make Live Caption work. If I set XMP via Photoshop, I can't see XMP data, and naturally can't set Live Caption.
I could have done my project 5 times manually by now - but the fact this isn't working has been driving me crazy. Wondered if anyone has seen this or, hopefully, got it to work. And am I doing something wrong?
Thanks,
Matt

I think this is a bug - probably in Photoshop (though the various engineering teams may disagree on this ).
Here's what I did:
Opened a TIFF image in Photoshop CS5, and confirmed that it had "Description" metadata.
Placed it in InDesign CS5 and created a live caption which DID work.
Saved the image as a PNG using "Save for Web and Devices" in Photoshop CS5 with metadata set to "All".
Placed that PNG in InDesign CS5, and found that a live caption did NOT work
Examined the PNG image in Bridge CS5, and found that the description WAS shown
Opened the PNG image in Photoshop CS5, and found that the description field was empty (in fact all fields were).
Looked at the "Raw Data" section in the File Info dialog box in Photoshop, and found that it was essentially empty.
Opened the PNG in a hex editor, and found that the missing metadata WERE there, but somehow must be formatted/structured in a slightly incorrect way which somehow prevents Photoshop and InDesign from properly parsing the XML, but not so far afield as to prevent Bridge from doing so.
I would suggest filing a bug report against Photoshop CS5 since it cannot read the metadata that one of its own components wrote into the file.

Can you generate a static caption for video in InDesign?

I set up my caption in the metadata description area in Bridge. I am trying to generate the static caption in InDesign and it goes through the motion but gives me a blank box. It works correctly for my images, but not for my video. Can this be done or does it just not work for videos?

Seems like this is not possible for videos. I tried static and dynamic captions with MOV and FLV. No chance.

How do I get the file nformation from photoshop to move over to InDesign and once info is there how to I get InDesign to create captions from it?

I need to be able to create captions from the metadata located in the file info on .png images created in Photoshop. I have been running into multiple issues.
1. The data from Photoshop is not showing up in the InDesign File Info
2. When I simply recreate the information - it is very basic simply description and copyright - the active caption that is generated reads <no data from link>
Obviously I'm missing an essential step by I cant figure out what.
Help point me in the right direction would be most appreciated.

I just tried that and still the same issue. I right clicked the graphic, (first made sure that the metadata was in the File Information window), then Captions > Captions Setup > OK. The Metadata fields are Description and Copyright. When I try to generate a Live Caption I get the <no data from link> message and for the Static Caption I get an empty container below the graphic

Caption function in InDesign CS6

I have been playing with the Caption function in InDesign and cannot get a handle on it.
Is there a discussion or video that might help me?
In InDesign, I go to enter a caption for my picture.
Object / Caption / Caption setup.
It says it is looking for a piece of metadata called "Name".
I go to Adobe Bridge to enter the metadata for this image. There is no field called "Name" (or at least I have not yet found it).
Should I use "Title"? I added my caption text as the "Title" in Bridge
Relinked the photo
I went to Caption Setup and chose Title instead of name, told it to use my "caption" paragraph style. I'm not sure how the before/after function works.
I do not see the text either in Caption setup or anywhere else.
I tried to Generate Live Caption and what appeared under my picture is "<No intersecting link>"
Huh?
My goal is to keep the caption together with the picture when exporting to accessible pdf, or ebook, or Kindle.
Coaching, please?
Thank you,
Joyce

I usually use the Description field in Bridge (although you could also use the Headline or Title fields:
Then in the Caption Setup, I select the same attribute.
The Caption frame needs to touch the picture. If it does, it looks like this:
If it doesn't, it looks like this:

5 seconds to Paradise: From where InDesign reads the live captions?

Hi all,
After searching a lot in finding the best cross-platform organizer & viewer around, I finally (ALMOST) found it.
It is called XnView MP and it has an ultra-fast thumbnail manager, viewer - it supports a very big number of file formats for thumbnailing/viewing - including InDesign(!) - a top-notch cataloging, the best & fastest batch convert which I could find and... <insert your advertising of choice here>.
Highly recommended.
</ad off>
However there is a problem:
When we add/edit the metadata for an image (specifically the caption) in its IPTC/XMP editor (Ctrl+I), the text isn't shown with the Live Captions feature of InDesign CS6.
We discuss with the developing team of XnView MP and they are very responsive and want to fix the problem but we don't know (yet) from where InDesign reads its metadata.
Some more technical info to describe the problem:
1. The files are TIFF (LZW packed) files.
2. If we open the file in Photoshop, press Ctrl+Shift+I in order to bring its IPTC editor, the caption entered with XnView shows up correctly in the Description field.
3. If, after the step 2, we close the editor with 'Ok' do a 'Save As' in Photoshop and overwrite the file, the caption will appear correctly in InDesign.
4. If, after the stpe 3, we (re)open the image in XnView MP's IPTC editor the caption is there.
It seems that Photoshop does something behind the scenes and fill the area from where InDesign reads it.
Does someone know from what fields InDesign reads its info for Live Captions?

I don't really have an answer for you - I guess it's up to them to figure it out.
Sorry I can't help any further.

Captions in InDesign?

I came to InDesign after using Corel Ventura for 10 years. Ventura allows you to add a caption frame to each frame and it can be added to the top, bottom, left or right of the frame. I really only need a bottom caption area. Does InDesign have anything similar?
Thanks,
Phil

Thanks Mike. I am finding a lot of things I like better about InDesign for the pieces I publish. I can make multiple frames to accomplish what I am after, it is just nice that in Ventura they are linked together.
Phil

Bridge to InDesign Contact Sheet - Define Caption Code for name?

Hello,
Another beginners question, but I promise after this I'm done:
I'm using a script written for Bridge CS4 to create contact sheets in InDesign v 5.03.
When the dialog window opens in Bridge to set the parameters for outputting the contact sheet, one of the option is to give the items on the contact sheet a caption - for this it offers some suggested codes.
To add the filename as the caption, the code is <var filename>. This gives me the file name plus extension i.e. image1.jpg.
Creation date is another, code is: <var cdate[YYMMDD]>
I would like the caption to just be the filename without the .jpg extension, i.e. image1
Does anyone know what the code would be to give the script the instruction to leave off the extension, please?
Many thanks in advance.

Oh, you're my hero, Bob!!
I didn't know about Find/Replace - told you I was a novice.
What you've taught me today will save me soooooooo much time!
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Is there a way to drop an image into indesign and then have that file name captioned underneath?

Hello! I'm looking to help a colleague into streamlining a process. We have to display images full page in an Indesign Document and every time we drop and image onto a page, we then need to edit the caption underneath with the file name. Just wondering if there is a way to automate this process? Any scripts available?

When you place an image you can turn on the capture function. There are normal and live versions. The normal labeling creates a text as text is, the live version creates a variable which would change if the image or the text in the meta information changes, but it behaves like a single character which causes problems how the text will run in the text frame.
What is drawn out of the Meta must be set up before in the caption set up option.
When you drag and drop an image from the finder or from Bridge you can't activate this option.
BTW I use it a different way which seems to me faster. I assign a shortcut to the labeling command and when I have imported the image, I click this shortcut and in a second step I apply an Object style which will format the text frame including Paragraph style which might be different on a dark or bright photo or upon a graphic.
Normally I edit all meta information in Adobe Bridge, which is the fastest way to handle it.

When I make an epub indesign moves the captions to the top

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Glitch with InDesign CS5s Live/Static Caption...

I've been following some of the forums re: problems with generating live/static captions, but none have solved this problem.
I'm laying out thumbnails to generate caption info from the EXIF data. All the EXIF data can be seen when in Bridge but only one of the camera settings (lens used) loads into the live/static data, all the others show as <no data from link> for the Live caption, or just the text specified prior to the data for the static caption. I've checked & re-checked that the metadata info is in the correct place, but Captions just doesn't seem to link to it.
Other data fields I'm trying to show are: camera; focal length; ISO speed; aperture & shutter. It seems bizarre that it selects the 'lens' metadata yet none of the others & that is the only place that the lens info has been input - so it couldn't have got it from anywhere else! Spooky!
But seriously, I'm a bit stumped on what to do next - other than input each by hand, but with 200 images to do & a deadline approaching I'd appreciated any help!
Thanks.

Have just found the solution...an error in updating the image files to a shared folder, so the metadata must've been corrupted....but don't know how bridge managed to access it & especially how it managed to grab the lens data only! Anyway, all sorted - thanks.

InDesign CS5.5--can't generate live captions

Having used Bridge to insert metadata descriptions and copyright info in my graphics files, and having done "caption setup" in Objects Menu, I find that the Captions Submenu choices for "Generate Live Caption" and "Generate Static Caption" are greyed out. I am doing an ebook with inline pictures and have placed the jpegs at the beginning of paragraphs. I can't replicate any of the smooth successes depicted in all the "How To" videos. What am I doing wrong, please?

Many thanks! Hope there's a script out there, with multi-chapter epubs growing by leaps and bounds. I also found this comment on another forum page from Peter Spier: "To group the image and the frame with the caption you'll need to "unanchor" the image first by selecting the frame and cutting. Paste temporarily on the pasteboard, position the caption frame, group, then cut and paste back into the text. You may need to adjust the "anchored object options" for the anchored group after pasting." Your comment and his will give me a direction for the dozens of images I already positioned inline. After that, much smoother sailing, understanding this part of the mechanics.

Problem creating a 'used sources' list based on EXIF data in InDesign CS5

Hello everyone,
I recently started to use InDesign CS5 to work on school projects. These projects regularly require us to have a list of sources, not only for citations and referenced work, but also for images. As I sometimes make quite long documents, keeping track of what image is where, and where I got it from, gets tedious.
I had the idea of generating a caption based on EXIF data, which I'd move to the pasteboard, and group it with the image. The text in the caption has a seperate, numbered paragraph style. On one of the last pages, I generate a table of contents, which the numbered paragraph style selected. I chose to display it using another paragraph style, without page numbers.
What I want to have as the end result is:
Table of contents
1. <Title>. <Author> (<Creation Date>). Retrieved <Date Placed> through <Description>
The captions display correctly, as shown above in the body of the table of contents. The table of contents itself however, shows only the numbering in front of it, and not the variables.
I already tried converting the live captions to static captions, but that doesn't work. Does anyone have an idea how to solve this?

Hello everyone,
I recently started to use InDesign CS5 to work on school projects. These projects regularly require us to have a list of sources, not only for citations and referenced work, but also for images. As I sometimes make quite long documents, keeping track of what image is where, and where I got it from, gets tedious.
I had the idea of generating a caption based on EXIF data, which I'd move to the pasteboard, and group it with the image. The text in the caption has a seperate, numbered paragraph style. On one of the last pages, I generate a table of contents, which the numbered paragraph style selected. I chose to display it using another paragraph style, without page numbers.
What I want to have as the end result is:
Table of contents
1. <Title>. <Author> (<Creation Date>). Retrieved <Date Placed> through <Description>
The captions display correctly, as shown above in the body of the table of contents. The table of contents itself however, shows only the numbering in front of it, and not the variables.
I already tried converting the live captions to static captions, but that doesn't work. Does anyone have an idea how to solve this?

How do I get the caption (Description) out of an image's metadata?

Taking a break from a monstrous project that has had me tied up for days, I have embarked upon what I thought would be a bit of light relief (hah!).
A colleague asked me for an easy way to get captions into InDesign. So I started scripting there, asking for the "description of the link xmp".
This was not forthcoming and a search of the InDesign scripting forum yielded the information that in order to get this information it was necessary to open the doc in Photoshop, save it and re-link. This indeed does work, but it is a waste of time in the file-saving stage and also degrades the image, as we have a jpg workflow.
So I thought that if I was going to have to got to Photoshop anyway, why not have the script go straight there, open the doc, ask for the description and close without saving?
Photoshop so far has jealously guarded its XMP information.
In Applescript I ask go "set theData to raw data of XMP metadata of document 1" and there it is in the event log, but in forbidding red type. I try adding "as string" and it appears twice, once in friendly black type, enclosed in quotes, and then the red stuff. However I find myself refused access to the information in the variable.
AS or JS solutions welcome...

tell application "Adobe InDesign CS2"
activate
tell active document
set This_Selection to get selection
try
if This_Selection ≠ {} then
if length of This_Selection ≠ 1 then
display dialog "You have more than 1 item seleted!!!" giving up after 2
else
if class of item 1 of This_Selection is image then
set This_Image to item 1 of This_Selection
end if
if class of item 1 of This_Selection is rectangle then
set This_Image to image 1 of item 1 of This_Selection
end if
set Image_Path to file path of item link of (item 1 of This_Image)
set MDLS_Result to my Get_XMP_Description(Image_Path)
set {ASTID, AppleScript's text item delimiters} to {AppleScript's text item delimiters, " = "}
set Image_Desc to text item 2 of MDLS_Result
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to ASTID
display dialog Image_Desc giving up after 2
end if
else
display dialog "You have 0 items seleted!!!" giving up after 2
end if
on error
display dialog "This rectange contains NO image!!!" giving up after 2
end try
end tell
end tell
on Get_XMP_Description(File_Path)
try
do shell script "/usr/bin/mdls -name kMDItemDescription " & quoted form of POSIX path of File_Path
return the result
on error
return false
end try
end Get_XMP_Description

Cross references corrupted after placing Word document into an InDesign document

I am placing a word document which contains cross references to headers and captions/figures within the document. They seem to be fine and function correctly in the Word document, however, after I place this word doc into my InDesign doc, I take a look at the cross references panel and notice that the cross references have been corrupted. It is wrapping the wrong portions of text from the cross reference destinations. See screenshot for a visual of how the cross references are malformed. For example the 7th cross reference in the list should say Framework Details, not "Framework Detai
InDesign Cross References Panel - showing malformed bits of text
Another visual of this issue can be seen if I view the text frame in Story Editor view, see below. You can see that the cross reference source tags (blue arrow like symbols) are wrapped around the wrong portions of text. The blue tags shoud be wrapped around Framework Details and 52
InDesign Story Editor
You can see below as to why I think the cross references are fine in the Word doc, you can see the same cross reference I used in the example above in the word doc and it is wrapping the correct portion of text:
Word - showing cross reference is formed corerctly
Why is this not being maintained after placing this file into InDesign?
Also I am not performing any cross reference updates after I import, this problem occurs immediately after the place of the doc.
Why would InDesign be having difficulty in importing these cross references? I have set up a simple test Word document with cross references to headers and figures in and they have imported fine. What could be wrong with this other particular word doc that would be causing this "corruption" of cross references? This is not only causing my cross references to break visually and lack the update capability but also I cannot export the InDesign doc to an ePub as it keeps crashing. I believe from my reading on the web that if there is only one broken cross reference source i.e. the cross reference destination that it is trying to link to is missing, then the export to epub will fail. So this is causing a massive headache for me at the minute.
Is there anything I could be looking at in the Word doc to try and figure out why the porblem is occuring in the first place?
If anyone has any tips or a possible solution to this I would really appreciate it. Even better if someone knows the reason why this is happening I can tackle it from the source and prevent it happening time and time again.
Thanks, Dave

Only bad experiences, Peter ...
I've seen this character shifting before on numerous occasions, both with cross references and with hyperlinks. (It's especially funny with hyperlinks, 'cause you can see that the outline box shifts one character at a time per each next link...)
The thing is it's not just limited to hyperlinks and cross refs. Dave's screenshot doesn't show bold, italics, or other local formatting, but it's a fair bet these are off by a couple of characters as well.
Dave's experiment of making a "minimal" Word document to confirm it's a persistent bug didn't work. I found the same thing: either a document comes in fine, or everything is foo-bar right from the start. There must be some internal Word code that InDesign forgets to count as 'a character position'. Without delving into the Word file with some very advanced tools, it's anyone's guess what code that would be.
I can only offer the one solution that works for me: in Word, remove all hyperlinks (which is what Word uses for internal links as well as for external ones) and convert all cross-references to text. Then, if the file finally imports fine, re-build them in InDesign. It's a cumbersome workaround, but slightly better (only just) than checking each reference, delete, rebuild, check next -- etc. (And with that the chance that your other text attributes are also off.)

InDesign captions

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