Inserting graphics into a Word document
Introduction
Graphics can jazz up a document with relatively little effort. Inserting graphics is
straightforward, but it’s worth knowing how to control the way the graphic is
positioned relative to the text around it. Word provides a variety of tools to
control this, as well as other tools to make your graphics look good.
Inserting the
graphic
A graphic is placed at the position of the cursor.
Therefore, before you insert it, you must place the
cursor at the point where you want the graphic to
go. You can easily reposition it later if it is not
exactly correct.
To insert a graphic, select the Insert Ribbon and
click the Picture or ClipArt button.
If you choose ClipArt, a search window appears at the right side of the window,
ready for you to type in keyword(s) for the type of picture you want. A selection
of graphics will be displayed. Click on the one you want and it will appear where
the cursor is.
If you choose Picture, you use the dialog box that appears next to browse to
find the graphic file that you have on the computer.
Resizing and
cropping
You can resize a graphic by dragging its resizing controls. The
corner ones resize in proportion, whereas the ones in the middle
only resize in that direction.
The Picture
ribbon
When the graphic is in the document and it has the focus (i.e. the box around it
is highlighted), an extra ribbon appears with tools relevant to graphics).
Position tool
Text wrapping tool
Crop tool
Continued on next page
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Inserting graphics into a Word document, Continued
Text wrapping
The graphic has appeared in your document, but probably isn’t positioned in the
text the way you want it. There are several text wrapping options, some more
useful than others.
You can use the Position tool to choose a simple position on the page and text
wrap option. But you will probably want to use the Text Wrap tool for more
specific positioning and wrapping.
Text wrapping tool is very important. This determines how text “flows” around
the graphic. A list of options appears when you click the Text Wrap tool.
Experiment to find the one that suits you best. By default the graphic is set “In
line with text”, which treats the graphic as though it is text, and makes the text
wrap around
the sides. The text doesn’t go up the side of the
graphic. The cat graphic above is wrapped this way.
Often the most convenient text wrap option is Square, where
the text wraps right around the graphic, but leaves a square
border. The cat graphic at right is wrapped this way.
If you opt for “Tight”, then the graphic is
completely wrapped by the text, which goes
of the graphic. Some graphics have curved
can be very suitable in this instance. The cat
paragraph is wrapped using the “Tight” option.
Edit wrap points
You can customize the wrapping of text around a graphic
quite finely by clicking “Edit wrap points” in the wrapping
tool. This allows you to change the shape around the graphic
so that the text wraps more or less tightly around it. Click
anywhere on the red line and drag inwards or outwards.
Applying style
You can jazz the style of your graphics up very easily by using
the Style, Shadow Effects and Border tools on the Picture
Tools ribbon.
right up to the side
edges, so this
graphic in this
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