Note for Guidance No 41
West Yorkshire Fire & Rescue Service
Digital Photographic Images &
Microsoft Word - Tips & Hints
Background
We generate many reports as part of regular duties within WYFRS and some of them will contain
digital photographic images as a matter of course. Dependant upon an individual’s knowledge of
(a) Digital Photography principles and (b) how Microsoft Word deals with embedded images, the
resulting report could end up extremely large in size, slow to save and slow to print, dependant
upon the number of photographs inserted.
When such large files are passed to colleagues via email, further versions will “clog up” the email
servers such is their size.
In almost all cases, the actual size of print required in the document is far smaller than the original
image size – up to 15 times larger than required, dependant upon the Effective Pixels specification
of the camera. This can be reduced with no loss of quality when printed on laser/inkjet printers.
This document aims to give “Best Practice” advice and guidance on the use of Microsoft Word and
digital photographs.
Digital Cameras’ – Pixels & File Sizes and Uses
The primary purpose of the photographs is usually to present evidence in a court of law and as
such, high quality images and prints are the requirement. The cameras currently in use provide the
correct quality levels for this purpose and more. The table below shows the relationship between
image size, megapixels and print size.
Image Size
Megapixels
Print Size (in inches)
5184 x 3456
18
17 x 11
4064 x 2704
11.1
13.5 x 9
3088 x 2056
6.3
10.25 x 6.8
3008 x 1960
5.3
10 x 6.5
2048 x 1535
3.0
6.8 x 5.1
1600 x 1200
2.0
5.3 x 4
1024 x 768
1.2
3.41 x 2.56
800 x 600
0.3
2.67 x 2
Note. The figures shown above will vary from camera to camera – but serves as a guide for the purposes of
these notes.
The shaded blocks highlight the most common sized print sizes that would be used in a Microsoft
Word document on A4 paper and this is the only size needed for that purpose. For PowerPoint –
800 x 600 is ample.
When you require photo quality prints for court etc., these should be printed outside of Word onto
photo quality paper.
Issue Date
November 2011
Review Date
December 2013
Ref
FSNFG041
How Does Microsoft Word Deal with Large Digital Images?
If you “Insert” – “Picture” – “From File” and place a photograph sized as per the top three lines of
the table, dependant upon some settings under “Options”, Word will automatically recognise the
picture will not fit within page boundaries and “shrink to fit” – or insert the image, “drop off” the
page and allow you to “reduce” the image Visibility via the “Format Picture” option.
What Effect Does This Have?
Once you have “Reduced” the Visibility of the images and finished your document, to the eye there
is nothing wrong and the document will print to your expectations. However, should you have many
photographs inserted, even though they may look small, your saved document will be very large.
This is the size visible
and printed in the
document.
This is the original size of the
image and that’s also the
size of the image stored
inside the document. This
image will be approx 4 to
4.5MB
The shot below displays a more efficient way of dealing with inserted images;
This is the size visible and
printed in the document and is
now the actual size too. This
image will be approx 4 to
4.5KB (About  the original
size)
This document contains three
photographs reduced to approx 5.75”
x 4.2”. Its total file size is 1.2MB
This document
contains three
photographs at full
size. Its total file size
is 12MB.
And to state the obvious – if you need to include 10, 15 or 20 photographs, if they are not first
reduced in size, you will end up with 100MB documents.
Recommended Process
1. Create a directory(s) where you can store reduced size images taken from your working copy
CD. Meaningful names will assist quick location of photographs when the time comes to insert
them.
2. Copy the full size images to your new directory from your working copy CD.
3. Open the images in Microsoft Office Picture Manager as per the following pictorial steps.
Right-click a file
Select “Open With”
Select Office Picture Manager
Once Picture Manager is
loaded – click here to change
the view to “All Images”
Once “All Images” are in view – press Ctrl-A to “Select All” as above. Don’t worry
about selecting a mixture of Portrait & Landscape orientation shots, the resize
process works regardless.
Select “Picture” then
select “Resize”
Select “Predefined width x height then select
“Document Large (1024 x 768)
Click “OK” and you will be returned to
the view below. The * next to each
filename indicated the file is altered but
not yet saved.
Click “File” and select “Save All”
Then “File” and “Exit”
This is the end result – greatly
reduced image sizes.
Your original large files are now overwritten – to leave the large originals on the working copy CD
only.
Finally
You are now ready to insert the images into your Word document using your usual method(s)