Answered By: Elaine M. Patton
Last Updated: Feb 23, 2024     Views: 2537

After you insert an image to your document...

Insert Caption

  1. Right-click your image.
    1. If you want the text to wrap around the image, do that now. 
  2. Select "Insert Caption..."
  3. You may define a New Label so that it uses the abbreviation. (MLA typically abbreviated Figure to Fig. and Example to Ex.)
    Word Caption editing window with a new label defined as Fig.
  4. Write in your caption or citation in the Caption field.
    Word Caption tool. A caption has been written into the Caption field after "Fig. 1."
  5. Click OK.

Formatting the Caption

  1. Highlight the caption and click the I to remove italics.
    Image caption highlight to pull up the quick edit panel. Click the I to remove italics formatting.

 

Change the Text Wrapping

In MLA, you can choose how to place images in your document, so long as everything stays inside the 1" margins. 

By default, the image will be added to its own line, rather than text wrapping around it. 

If you want the text to wrap around the image, change that first, then add the caption! The caption won't move with the image. Remember, MLA explicitly wants captions below the images. The caption is just treated as plain text by Word, so it's not an object we can add wrapping to itself.

Example of a caption that has shifted to the right of the image. It blends in with the rest of the text wrapping around the photo, which isn't what we want.

  1. Insert your image.
  2. Resize if needed.
  3. While the image is selected, use either the Layout Options button that will appear at the corner of the image or the Wrap Text menu at the top to view your options. (You can also right-click the image and select Wrap Text.)
    Access image layout or text wrap options from the selected image's options or the main toolbar
  4. Choose your wrapping -- probably Square or Tight. 
  5. Proceed to follow the instructions to Insert Caption now.

 

Final result:

Text wrapped around an image with the caption still properly underneath it

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Comments (2)

  1. That works fine if he image is in a Word document but not if it is a free image in a file folder.
    by JoplinGuy on Feb 14, 2025
  2. JoplinGuy - Right, these instructions are for captioning figures in a Word document. If you want a caption to be part of an image, you'd need an image editor (e.g. Paint, Snagit, Photoshop, Canva) that lets you add text and save it all as one thing (though in this case, the text would not be accessible, if that matters for your use case).
    by Librarian Elaine on Feb 17, 2025

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