Digital Technology and Production
Adding Images to Microsoft Word Documents
Placing images in Word is easy - getting the layout to look good and the text to flow properly isn't so straightforward.
Here are the sample files. This is a 600 word document, an excerpt from an essay I read. I have included several photos, but you can choose three of your own.
EnviroSampleText.doc
EnviroSampleText-w/images.doc
Sample Images:
BizePool
CanoeLake
DarienRiver
MBB-mountain
Download the MSWord files and images. Save them into a folder called 'Text+Images1'. Open both the 'SampleText.doc' file and the 'SampleText-w/images.doc', to see how I dropped the images in place and set some to left align and some to right align.
With the SampleText file, go to Insert > Picture > from File, and choose the image you want. The image will drop into place, but here is where what you have learned about image size comes into play. A large image file will come in too big. When you click on the image, roll over the corner and a handle will appear. You can click and drag the image smaller. Dragging by the corner means you won't change the proportions. Nothing looks uglier than an improperly squashed image. As usual, don't drag it bigger, or it will look pixellated.
Clicking on the image the will also bring up the "Format Image" dialog box. Click on the dialog box or go to Format > Format Picture. Click the "Layout" tab, and you'll see options for how the text flows around the picture, and how to align the image on the page. Experiment a bit and see what you like. You can also click on the picture and drag it up and down on the page to adjust how the lines of text balance on the page. Don't leave a single line before or after the image. Make sure there are at least two or three lines so the text doesn't look unbalanced.
Remember, you'll be formatting Word documents many, many times in the future, so get used to it.
Save this file in the usual format: lastname-first-sampleText.doc. Don't email them to me since I don't want to clog up my inbox. Show me next week, and as the term moves along you'll have to do this again and again so look carefully at the options in the "Format Picture" dialog box.