Picture frames can be made to work like InDesign!

[MickRose]

If you're unhappy about the "intelligent" picture moving & resizing that goes on when you resize a picture frame, try this.

Create a picture frame.
Place a picture inside it.
Double click the picture or select it from the layers panel.
Move the picture by any amount with an arrow key and

Voila! the frame can be moved without the picture changing. The setting in the Properties panel seems to not affect this.

Maybe this is known but I've just discovered it so I'm happy and want to share it.

[MEB]

Hi MickRose,
When you move the image inside the frame, the scale properties of the frame are automatically set to None and thus the image is not affected anymore when you change the size of the frame.

[MickRose]

I'd already tried that but it didn't work. The image didn't scale but it did move about as the frame was resized to keep in in the middle. Moving the picture seems to lock it. (Ctrl L to lock the image doesn't lock it, it just stops it being selected.)

[mac_heibu]

„Grouping“ the image and its container fixes the issue — for whatever reason.

[MickRose]

Grouping does indeed seem to work. The only case in which both methods don't work is if you want to shear or rotate the image within a fixed frame.

[MEB]

2 hours ago, MickRose said:

I'd already tried that but it didn't work. The image didn't scale but it did move about as the frame was resized to keep in in the middle. Moving the picture seems to lock it. (Ctrl L to lock the image doesn't lock it, it just stops it being selected.)

Hi MickRose,
Are you using Publisher on Windows or Mac?

[MickRose]

Windows 7

[MEB]

Ok, thank you. Seems there's a few inconsistencies in behaviour between platforms here. I will have to check this out.