HYPERLINKS

INSERTING AND POSITIONING GRAPHICS

Control the Size Of a Pasted Graphic

The Annoyance:

Whenever I paste in a bitmap graphic (e.g., a GIF or JPEG), Word decides for itself what size the image should be in my document. I would like for it to paste in the image at its natural size and then let me scale it if necessary. Lots of images only look good at their natural sizes, so I don't want Word messing around with the dimensions.

The Fix:

Word is probably just trying to make sure that the picture fits within the margins or page size you're using. To force Word to display the picture at its full size, right-click the picture, choose Format Picture, click the Size tab, and set the Height and Width spinners to 100%.

Make Your Pictures Look Right

The Annoyance:

I have trouble making pictures fit into my documents. There are so many steps for inserting pictures, with hidden formatting issues. How do I put a picture where I want it without messing up the entire document? Some pictures have even just disappeared!

The Fix:

Inserting a picture in a document shouldn't be too much of a chore: choose Insert Picture From File and take it from there. Here are the six key points about positioning pictures:

  • Word can put pictures either in line with the text or in the drawing layer (discussed in the next bulleted paragraph). A picture that's in line with the text moves the text around it. You can specify whether a picture is in line or not by right-clicking it, choosing Format Picture, clicking the Layout tab, and choosing "In line with text," "Square," or "Tight" to put the picture in line or "Behind text" or "In front of text" to put the picture in the drawing layer.

  • The drawing layer is inaccurately named. It's actually a stack of sublayers , so you can put one picture or other graphical object on top of another. This can be useful for creating visual effects, but it can also explain why pictures sometimes disappearsomething else is on top of them and blocking the view. You can rearrange the layers of objects by right-clicking a visible object and choosing the appropriate command from the Order submenufor example, Send Backward or Bring in Front of Text.

  • The drawing layer extends both in front of and behind the text layer, so you can put graphics behind the text or in front of it if you want.

  • Pictures can be positioned either relative to a text object (for example, a paragraph) or relative to the page. To specify precise positioning, click the Advanced button on the Layout tab of the Format Picture dialog box and work on the Picture Position tab.

  • The easiest way to resize a picture is by clicking it in the document and then dragging its sizing handles. For precise sizing, use the Size tab of the Format Picture dialog box.

  • The basic way of putting a picture into a document is to insert it. This makes Word store all the picture information, so if you send the document to somebody else, the picture will be in the document. This is handy, but it increases the document's size. To keep down the size of a document ( especially one that contains many pictures), you can link the picture instead of inserting it. The document then stores only a link to the picture and reads the picture in from the picture file. If the picture file is moved, or if you send the document to someone who can't access the picture file, the picture doesn't appear. Word also offers a hybrid option: insert the picture and link it back to its source. Word then uses the linked picture when it's available, which is useful for making the document show the latest picture available, and falls back on the inserted picture when the link is not available. To insert (or insert and link) a picture, click the arrow by the Insert button and choose the appropriate command from the pop-up menu.

Crop Pictures Outside Word

The Annoyance:

The lads in the Sales department put together a nice brochure, complete with graphics they'd borrowed from the manufacturer's web site. They cropped the graphics in Word so that the manufacturer's name was hidden. But when the VP accidentally reset one of the graphics on his copy of the brochure, the manufacturer's name popped up, and the trouble started.

The Fix:

The fix is simple enough: don't crop graphics in Word! If you need to make sure that a part of a graphic isn't visible in your document, crop the graphic before putting it into Word. Word's "cropping" just hides the specified amount at the edge of the picture.

Any graphics application worth having can crop pictures. (Even Paint, which is arguably barely worth having, can do rudimentary cropping: choose Image Attributes and enter smaller measurements to crop parts of the south and east edges off a graphic.) The freeware IrfanView (http://www. irfanview .com) offers good cropping, along with a wealth of other features.

Get Rid of the Drawing Canvas

The Annoyance:

When I click the icon to create a text box in the Mac version of Word, I get a nice, discreet box that I can resize as needed. But when I ask Word XP for a text box, it creates a half-page- sized box that takes over the document, and I have to spend a fair amount of time resizing the box and reformatting the text to get everything under control.

The Fix:

Welcome to the Drawing Canvas, Word 2003 and Word XP's tool for helping you put together drawings consisting of AutoShapes. Word 2000 doesn't offer this annoyanceand, as you've discovered , neither do Word X and Word 2004 for the Mac.

To turn off the Drawing Canvas, choose Tools Options, click the General tab, and uncheck the "Automatically create drawing canvas when inserting AutoShapes box. You should then get a more manageable text box when you click the Text Box button on the Drawing toolbar.

Rotate Text to the Angle You Want

The Annoyance:

When manipulating text in a table cell in Word, I can only rotate it 90 degrees one way or the other. In WordPerfect, I can rotate text 90, 180, 270, or 360 degrees. Obviously, I don't generally want to rotate 360 degrees, but it's helpful to have the 180-degree option.

The Fix:

As you say, the Format Text Direction command is limited to producing vertical text (either a 90-degree rotation or a 270-degree rotation)and it works only for table cells .

If this isn't sufficient, what you need to do is create a graphic that contains the text you want to rotate. Create the text in Word, and then use a utility such as IrfanView (http://www.irfanview.com) to capture a graphic of the text and crop it down to the section you want. Insert the graphic, position it in front of or behind the text, and rotate it to the angle you want (see Figure 4-13).

Figure 4-13. For upside-down text, such as the answers to riddles or "Fold this sheet here" instructions, you need to use a graphic showing the text you want.

Wrap Text Around a Picture

The Annoyance:

I'm trying to put a picture in my document with the text wrapping around it. But every time I insert the picture, Word puts it in line with the text.

The Fix:

The immediate fix for this picture is to right-click it, choose Format Picture, click the Layout tab, and select the "In front of text" option. You can specify the horizontal alignment by clicking the Advanced button and choosing the appropriate positioning and wrapping settings in the Advanced Layout dialog box. Alternatively, drag the graphic to the desired position.

If you want to make Word always place pictures in a different way than in line with the text, choose Tools Options, click the Edit tab, and choose the appropriate option (for example, "Behind text) in the "Insert/paste pictures as" drop-down list. Word 2000 doesn't offer this option.

Make Graphics Visible in Print Layout View

The Annoyance:

Why is there a difference between page view and print view as far as graphics are concerned ? I want to see all the graphics all the time, in any view.

The Fix:

It sounds as though you've got Word's "Picture placeholders" option turned on. (The usual reason for turning on picture placeholders is to make the document scroll faster.) When this option is on, Print Layout view displays only placeholdersempty rectanglesto indicate where pictures appear. This option doesn't apply to Print Preview, so when you switch to Print Preview, your pictures appear.

To turn off placeholders, choose Tools Options, click the View tab, and uncheck the "Picture placeholders box. Word will then display all pictures in every view.

Display Object Anchors

The Annoyance:

I deleted some text in a documentand Word deleted an unrelated graphic along with the text.

The Fix:

What's happened is that the text you deleted included the object anchor for the graphic. The object anchor is a logical connector that links a floating graphic (or other floating object) to the text of the document.

Undo the deletion at once by pressing Ctrl+Z or choosing Edit Undo. Then turn on the display of object anchors so that you can see where objects are anchored: choose Tools Options, click the View tab, check the "Object anchors box, and click the OK button. Select the graphic and check where the anchor is (see Figure 4-14) before deleting adjacent text.

Figure 4-14. Object anchors add to the clutter in a document window, but they can help you avoid accidentally deleting graphics and other objects.

Position the Graphic Relative to the Page

The Annoyance:

I found the perfect graphic, inserted it in my document, and sized it just right. But as soon as I start to edit the text of the document, the graphic goes walkabout.

The Fix:

The problem is that the graphic is anchored to something that's movingprobably a paragraph. Right-click the graphic and choose Format Picture, click the Layout tab, click either the "Behind text" option or the "In front of text" option (whichever seems best for this picture), and then click the Advanced button. On the Picture Position tab, uncheck the "Move object with text" box. Select each of the "Absolute position" options (there's a horizontal one and a vertical one) and choose Page in the drop-down lists alongside these options.


Warning: If an anchor is contained in a table, you can position the object only relative to the table, not relative to the page.

Lock the Anchor When the Graphic is in Place

The Annoyance:

My object anchors are moving as I edit the text of my document. How can I get the anchors to stay where I cast them, even if I need to move the objects?

The Fix:

Choose Format Picture, click the Layout tab, and click the Advanced button. Check the "Lock anchor box on the Picture Position tab to make the anchor stay in place. Uncheck the "Move object with text" box if you want to prevent the object from moving when you move the text to which the anchor is attached.

Create a Watermark

The Annoyance:

I need to stamp "DRAFT" in red across each page of my report. I can put a floating graphic on each page, but they tend to move even if I try to anchor them.

The Fix:

Word considers this to be a watermark. Choose Format Background Printed Watermark and use the options in the Printed Watermark dialog box.

To create a watermark, Word uses the header-and-footer layer. If the canned options in the Printed Watermark dialog box don't give you enough flexibility, you can tweak the watermark by choosing View Header and Footer and working with the watermark directly. The header-and-footer layer is a special layer that enables you to position text or graphics anywhere on the page, not just in the areas conventionally reserved for headers and footers.

Position Lines Where You Need Them

The Annoyance:

I have real problems with Word's line-drawing capabilities. For example, it's extremely difficult to create a "form" in Word with a bit of text (Name, Address, etc.) followed by a line extending to the right margin of the page.

The Fix:

The easiest solution is not to use a drawing object for this; instead, set a tab at the right margin and use underscores as tab leaders . Type the introductory text and press Tab, and you'll get a line of underscores that extends from the last character to the right margin. Figure 4-15 shows an example.

Figure 4-15. To create a line from the end of text to the right margin, you can either use a tab with underscores as the tab leader (as in the top example) or draw a line drawing object (as in the bottom example). If you draw a line, use absolute positioning relative to the character and paragraph, and lock the anchor.

If you choose to stick with a drawing object, you'll need to specify absolute positioning for it. Before you start, turn off the Drawing Canvas in Word 2003 and Word XP (see "Get Rid of the Drawing Canvas," earlier in this chapter). You may also want to display the object anchors: choose Tools Options, click the View tab, and check the "Object anchors box. Also on the View tab, check the "Text boundaries" box so you can see exactly where the right margin is.


Tip: See "Position the Graphic Relative to the Page," earlier in this chapter, for more details on positioning drawing objects.

Draw the line, then right-click it and choose Format AutoShape from the shortcut menu. Click the Layout tab in the Format AutoShape dialog box, click the Advanced button, and then click the Picture Position tab. Select the "Absolute position" option in the Horizontal area, enter a small measurement such as 0.1" in the measurement box, and choose "Character" in the "To the right of" drop-down list. Select the "Absolute position" option in the Vertical area and choose "Paragraph" in the "Below" drop-down list. Check the "Move object with text" box, and then click the OK button to close each of the dialog boxes.

Back in the document, drag the line's anchor so that it's positioned just after the last character in the sentence , and then drag the line to the correct position if necessary. Revisit the Advanced Layout dialog box and tweak the settings if necessary. When you're satisfied with the line's position, check the "Lock anchor" box to prevent yourself from accidentally moving the anchor.



Word Annoyances
Word Annoyances: How to Fix the Most ANNOYING Things about Your Favorite Word Processor
ISBN: 0596009542
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 91

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