It’s so frustrating that a big and popular word-processing service like Google Docs lacks one feature that virtually other similar programs have — captioning an image. It’s so simple I thought there’s no way Google doesn’t have smart programmers to implement one.
But so far, there is no straightforward way to add text to the bottom of a picture. But at least the service has a multipurpose tool called Drawing. This tool lets us do many things, including scribbling, adding a watermark, and inserting a custom text box.
The latter will help us add a caption to an existing image on Google Docs. Here’s how.
1. First, insert a picture to a page. Be sure you are not selecting it.
2. Now, go to Insert > Drawing > New.
3. Click the Text box icon, then draw a text box for the caption.
4. Type the caption. You might want to customize the text using the available tool at the top.
5. Once you have done, hit Save and Close.
6. The text box will be inserted to where the cursor was left. You can drag it to the bottom of the picture.
To change the text, click the caption and then click Edit. It will then brings you back to the Drawing editor.
The process is indeed less convenient compared to other alternatives but this is the easiest way to caption a picture on Google Docs, at least for the time being.
If you are expecting to add more captions, I highly recommend using an add-on called Caption Maker. It’s popular, free, and most importantly, it’s well integrated into Google Docs so the learning curve should be easy.
