Using digital images in teaching and learning Using images in Word 2003

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1 Nicky Ransom Visual Resource Centre School of Humanities Section name Using digital images in teaching and learning Using images in Word 2003 Note: These instructions assume some basic knowledge of using Microsoft Word If you need further help, follow this link to the ITS Training Index and look at the beginner s guide for using Word: Preparing images Before inserting images into a Word document, make sure that they are the right format and image size for your use. Image format Word supports most common image formats, but JPEG, PNG or GIF files are usually recommended because of their smaller file size (see Image Formats for details about these formats). Full information on file formats supported by Word can be found here on the Microsoft web site. Image size As discussed in Understanding Digital Images, images for printing on plain paper on an ink jet or laser printer need to have a resolution of at least 150 ppi to obtain a reasonable image. Therefore, you need to decide how large you want the image to appear on the printed page (in inches), multiply this by the required resolution (150 ppi) to get the number of pixels you need to ensure a good quality print. For example, a printed image of 6 x 4 (about half an A4 page) would require 900 x 600 pixels (6 x 150 ppi, and 4 x 150 ppi). If your images are much bigger than this, you will be making your overall document file size larger than necessary, but this will probably not be an issue unless you have a lot of images in one document. If your images do not have enough pixels for your desired printed size, you could do a test print and see if the quality is acceptable for your use. Otherwise, scale down the size of the image in the document, or find a version with more pixels. University of Reading 2008 Wednesday 23 July 2008 Page 1

2 Inserting images 1. Place your cursor at the point where you wish to insert an image. 2. Open the Insert menu, point at Picture and select From File. 3. Navigate to the chosen image and click Insert. 4. The image will be inserted into your text. You can also copy and paste, or drag and drop an image directly into your document from your desktop, a folder, or the Internet. Tip: If your image is too large to fit within the margins when it is inserted, it will automatically be resized to fit your page. If you want to reset it to its full size, you can do this by selecting Reset Picture from the Picture toolbar. (If the Picture toolbar doesn t appear when you select an image, you can make it visible by selecting it from the Toolbar section of the View menu.) To move an image To move an image, click on it to select it, place your cursor over the picture, and drag it to where you want it to go. Depending on the text-wrapping settings of an image (discussed below), you can also use the keyboard arrow keys to move an image around (in any textwrapping mode except "In Line With Text"). Positioning images, or Why does my image not go where I want it to? Getting images to stay in the right place in Word can be very frustrating. By default, when an image is inserted in Word, it will be placed using the In Line With Text text wrapping setting. Your image will be treated as another character within the text, and you will be limited in how you can position it in your page. However, this may be acceptable if the image is fairly large and you are happy to position it in line with the left hand margin. Alternatively, you can change the text wrapping options so that you have more control over the position of your image. Select Text wrapping from the Picture toolbar and choose from the drop down list: Square is a good choice but you can experiment with the others depending on your desired layout. University of Reading 2008 July 08 Page 2

3 Tip: You can permanently change the default text wrapping settings that Word uses when inserting pictures by selecting Options from the Tool menu, selecting the Edit tab and choosing your preferred option from the Insert/paste pictures as drop down list. Resizing images If you want to make an inserted image larger or smaller, you can do this by using the resizing handles (small white dots or black squares depending on your text wrapping settings) that appear at the corners and edges of an image when you click on it. Position your cursor over a handle at one of the corners and drag the image to the required size. Tip: Resizing from the corner will ensure that the proportions of the image stay the same if you use a handle at the side it will distort your image. Use corner handles to resize a picture while maintaining its aspect ratio. The effects of using the side handles Cropping images If you want to show a detail of one of your images, you can do this using the crop tool from the Picture toolbar. 1. Click on the image you wish to crop. 2. Click on the Crop icon on the Picture toolbar black lines will appear in place of the resizing handles. 3. Position your cursor over one of these black lines, the cursor will change shape to match, and you can then click and drag the bar to crop the image. 4. Continue doing this until you have your final image as long as you don t click outside the image, you will remain in cropping mode. However, if you click outside the image, simply click on image again and select Crop from the toolbar to get back into cropping mode. 5. If you change your mind, you can un-crop by dragging the same black bar outwards (remember that you need to be in cropping mode first). Tip: to get more accurate control of the crop size, you can use the Format Picture dialogue box to enter the exact crop dimensions (select Format Picture from the Picture toolbar, then click on the Size tab). University of Reading 2008 July 08 Page 3

4 Image adjustments You can also make some other basic editing adjustments to an image by using the Picture toolbar. Insert picture Colour Contrast Brightness Rotate Border style Reset picture Compress picture From here you can make adjustments to the colour, contrast and brightness of an image, rotate it, and add a border. You can also reset the picture back to its original size by clicking the icon at the right hand end of the toolbar useful if you change your mind about cropping an image. Reducing file size If you have a lot of images in your document and the file size has become very large, you can use the Compress picture dialogue box to reduce the file size (not available on Mac computers). If you follow these steps, you will not affect the image quality. o o Click on the Compress picture icon on the Picture toolbar, and select the following options from the dialogue box: Apply to: All pictures in document Change resolution: Print Options: un-tick both options if you leave Compress pictures ticked, the quality of your images will be drastically reduced. Tip: any areas of a picture that you crop in Word will be hidden rather than deleted, in case you want to un-crop them. This can make your file size larger than is necessary, but you can delete this data permanently by ticking Delete cropped areas of pictures. However, this will mean that you can t restore the image to its full size later. Click OK. University of Reading 2008 July 08 Page 4

5 Extracting images from Word If you need to extract images from a Word document, simply cutting and pasting an image may result in a highly compressed and poor quality image. It is possible to extract images at their original size and quality by doing the following (providing that the Compress Picture option on the Picture toolbar wasn t used before the file was saved): 1. Open the File menu and select Save as Web Page 2. Enter a suitable filename and location to save the file. 3. Ensure that the file type is set to Web Page (*.htm; *.html) 4. Click Save. Word will now create a set of files at your specified location. 5. Navigate to this location and find a folder titled [filename] files (where [filename] is the name under which you saved the file). 6. Double click on this folder to open it and inside there will be image files for all the images in the document. This will include both the original files (usually with.png extension) as well as the resized Jpeg image used in the document). University of Reading 2008 July 08 Page 5

Using Microsoft Word. Working With Objects

Using Microsoft Word. Working With Objects Using Microsoft Word Many Word documents will require elements that were created in programs other than Word, such as the picture to the right. Nontext elements in a document are referred to as Objects