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Working with Graphics
Do you need to add a graphic (a photo, diagram, or graph) to your assignment? Here’s a
quick how-to as well as detailed directions for more challenging situations.
The quick way: How to insert images
Inserting into Word or PowerPoint

Find an image you like. The image could be something you find on the internet
(just make sure the copyright conditions don’t forbid you to use it). Or you might
want an image from another Word document, or a graph from Excel.

Hold your mouse over the image & click the RIGHT mouse button
(“right-click”)

Choose Copy from the menu

Go to your Word or PowerPoint document

Click to place the mouse pointer where you want the image to appear.

Right-click & choose Paste from the menu
Inserting into a document on the internet

Find an image you like on the internet. Make sure the copyright conditions don’t
forbid you to use it.

Hold your mouse over the image & click the RIGHT mouse button (“right-click”)

Choose Copy image from the menu

Go to your internet document

Click to place the mouse pointer where you want the image to appear.

Right-click & choose Paste from the menu
Need more detail?
Inserting a graphic into a Word or PowerPoint document is easy. Preparing an image to
use online takes a few more steps. These sections below will help you deal with most of
the issues you’ll encounter when adding images to your documents, presentations, an d
webpages.
Word and PowerPoint: Finding Good, Copyright-free Images
There are literally BILLIONS of digital images available to us today. You probably have
several hundred (at least) digital photographs stored somewhere on your camera or
computer. Many, many more are available on the internet. You may also have created a
chart or graph using Word or Excel or a similar program. Or you may have scanned an
image from a hardcopy (paper or book).
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If you plan on using one of your own images, determine where (i.e. in which folder) that
image has been saved.
If you plan on using somebody else’s image, you must be aware of copyright. Always read
the use guidelines that are posted with the image, and please respect the owner's rights.
It's also good practice to give credit or provide the source of the image, whenever
possible. If you'd like more information on copyright and fair use contact COTR's
copyright librarian.
These websites include many images with open or lenient copyright rules:

Google advanced image search. Be sure to scroll down to the bottom & for ‘image
rights’ choose something other than ‘not filtered by licence’.
(https://www.google.ca/advanced_image_search?)

Pocket lint lists many free photo sites. If you want to be guaranteed your right to reuse a photo, look for a Creative Commons licence. (http://www.pocketlint.com/news/104913-best-free-images-library-websites)

Looking for clip art? If what you want is an icon or more generic sort of image that
looks good in black & white, try the Open Clip Art collection
(http://openclipart.org/)
Word and PowerPoint: Inserting Images into your document
Once you find an image you like:
You can paste it right into your document:

Click on the image with your right mouse button & select Copy from the menu

Return to the program where you want the image to appear (Word, PowerPoint or
Paint)

Right-click again & choose Paste from the menu.
Or you can save it for later:

Click on the image with your right mouse button & select Save image as… from
the menu

Choose a folder to save the image in & take note of the filename (change it to
something descriptive if you prefer)

Click on Save.
Word and PowerPoint: Position and “wrap” your image
You've got a great picture to illustrate your text, and you know exactly where you want it
to be positioned. When you insert the picture, however, it floats off the page or seems to
be cut off, which is not what you had in mind. To fix this problem, here's a quick solution.
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When a picture is inserted into your Word document, its default placement is in line with
your text. That is, Word inserts the picture where your cursor is, even though it may not
be aligned properly with the text around it. If you want to reposition your picture
precisely, follow these steps:
1. Right-click on the picture.
2. Choose Wrap text from the menu.
3. Choose the Text Wrapping option that works best for you (Square or Tight are good
options).
Online presentations: Finding good, copyright-free images
If you’re looking online for good images for your online document, read over the section
above titled Word and PowerPoint: Finding Good, Copyright-free Images. The same rules
apply to images used online.
Remember that you can easily copy & paste an image that’s already on the inte rnet into
a webpage document. Images that are not already on the internet must first be uploaded
so they are available online (more on that in a following section).
Online presentations: Using your own photo or scanned image
In most cases you can use an image from your own computer’s hard drive (a saved photo
or scanned image, for example) in your online presentation. But be warned! Although you
can easily copy & paste an image from the internet into a document you’re working in on
your computer, you can’t easily go the other way: i.e. you can’t just copy & paste an
image from your own computer into an internet-based document.
To use a photo or scanned image from your own computer, you must first make sure the
image you want is in an internet-ready format. The easiestto-use image formats for the internet are files that end
with .jpg, jpeg, .gif, or png. These are called filename
extensions.
Look for this icon in your My
Computer window
How can you see these (sometimes
invisible) filename endings? When you
look at a list of the files on your computer, you'll often see
"thumbnails" (small images) with the file name. In order to see
the filename extension, you'll need to switch the view to
Details (see images).
Click Details from the menu
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Next, you must make sure your photo or scanned image is not too big. Generally, when
you're working online -- whether you're attaching files to a forum or email, or uploading a
picture or document for an assignment -- you want to use the best quality image you can
with the smallest file size possible.
Why is small file size so important? When you take a digital photo or scan an image the
file size is usually very large, and when you view the image (at 100%) you'll see that it is
also very large on your screen. Adding these large pictures to your reports and essays will
greatly increase the overall file size of your document. Just imagine if you had 10 images
in a document that were 1.5MB each. Your finished document would be over 15MB! File
sizes that large can take a really long time to upload. Many email providers won’t even
let you send a document that big.
How can you tell what size an image is? Once again, check the “Details” view of your file.
In the example below, file size is shown in the last column.
In the example above, you can see that these file sizes range from 5 KB to over 4 MB.
That's a big difference! (Remember: 1,000 KB = 1 MB (megabyte). Images that are bigger
than 500 KB are really going to weigh your document down.
And you can’t just “shrink” the image by clicking on its corner & dragging that corner
until the image looks smaller! This does not actually change the image’s file size; it only
makes it appear smaller in your document. To actually reduce the file size of an image,
you must resize it. We’ll have more on that in the following section.
Online presentations: How to Resize Images Using Windows’ Paint program
Most computers come with an easy-to-use image editing program already
installed. Windows PCs, for example, are pre-installed with the Paint program.
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The directions below describe how to use Paint in Windows 7. If you have another
version of Windows the directions may be somewhat different.
First, you need to Open the Paint program: Click the Start button (in bottom left
corner). Then click on All Programs > Accessories > Paint.
Next, you need an image to work with:

If you already have an image saved on your hard disk: Click File > Open,
select your image then click Open again
OR

If you wish to copy an image from the internet:
o navigate to the image you want
o Click on the image with your right mouse button & select Copy from
the menu
o Return to the Paint program
o Right-click again & choose Paste from the menu.
To make a large image smaller:


Look in the menu; click on Resize
Type in a percentage to resize. If your
image is really big, you might start
with 20 (in both boxes). If your image
is just a bit too big, try 80 (for both).
Then click OK.
Finally, choose File - - -> Save as… to save your
new smaller image.
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Uploading your internet-ready image
Once you have your image selected and resized (if necessary) you must upload it so that
it is available to your internet-based document.
Remember:

Documents on the internet can only display images that are also on the internet!

If you insert a graphic or image into your Word or PowerPoint document & you
upload the whole document, the images will be uploaded with the document.

If you want to insert one of your own images into your webpage, you must first
upload the image into the website. Most websites will have a tool that helps you
to do this: in Moodle, for example, the text editing window has an Insert image
button that guides you through the upload process.
Do you want or need to do more?
There are many programs that will let you edit your image in more complex ways. Try
these:

Don’t forget the good ol’ Paint program! Paint not only lets you resize large
images but also to add arrows, labels, additional details etc. It is easy to use &
usually available for free on all Windows-based computers.

If you need a complex, fully-featured graphics editing program, The Gimp is
available for free from http://www.gimp.org/

If you just need a quick-&-easy online photo editing program, try the Pixlr
express program: http://pixlr.com/express/
Gina Bennett (for COTR)