Copying and pasting an image

A simple way to stick an image into a document is to paste it in from elsewhere. Follow these steps:

1. Select the image in another program or from the web.

2. Press Ctrl+C to copy the image.

   For a web page image, right-click and choose the Copy or Copy Image command.

3. Switch to the Word document window.

   In Windows, press the Alt+Tab keyboard shortcut to deftly switch program windows.

4. In Word, position the insertion pointer where you want the image to dwell.
5. Press Ctrl+V to paste the image into the document.

If the image doesn’t paste, it might be in a graphical format incompatible with Word.

You can also obtain an image from the web directly, by performing a web image search from within Word: On the Insert tab, in the Illustrations group, click the Online Pictures button, shown in the margin. Use options in the Insert Pictures window to locate an online image, courtesy of Microsoft’s Bing search engine.

Plopping down a picture

Your computer is most likely littered with picture files. No matter how the image was created, as long as it’s found somewhere on your PC, you can stick it into your document. Follow these steps:

1. Click the mouse in the text where you want the image to appear.

2. Click the Insert tab; in the Illustrations group, click the Pictures button.

   After clicking the Pictures button, shown in the margin, the Insert Picture dialog box appears.

3. Locate the image file on your PC’s storage system.
4. Click to select the image.

5. Click the Insert button.

   The image is slapped down in the document.

A nifty picture to stick at the end of a letter is your signature. Use a desktop scanner to digitize your John Hancock. Save the signature as an image file on your computer, and then follow the steps in this section to insert that signature picture in the proper place in the document.

Refer to the book Word 2016 For Professionals For Dummies (Wiley) for details on adding a caption to an image and creating a list of captions for the manuscript.

Slapping down a shape

Word comes with a library of common shapes ready to insert in a document. These include basic shapes, such as squares, circles, geometric figures, lines, and arrows — plus popular symbols. Graphics professionals refer to these types of images as line art.

To place some line art in a document, follow these steps:

1. Click the Insert tab.

2. In the Illustrations group, click the Shapes button.

   The button, shown in the margin, holds a menu that lists shapes organized by type.

3. Choose a predefined shape.

   The mouse pointer changes to a plus sign (+).

4. Drag to create the shape.

   The shape is placed into the document, floating in front of the text.

At this point, you can adjust the shape: Change its size, location, or colors. Use the Drawing Tools Format tab, conveniently shown on the Ribbon while the shape is selected, to affect those changes.

• Instantly change the image by using the Shape Styles group on the Ribbon’s Drawing Tools Format tab. Choose a new style from the Shape Gallery. Styles are related to the document’s theme; see Chapter 16 for information on themes.
• Other items in the Shape Styles group affect the selected shape specifically: Click the Shape Fill button to set the fill color; use the Shape Outline button to set the shape’s outline color; choose an outline thickness from the Shape Outline button’s menu, on the Weight submenu; use the Shape Effects button to apply 3D effects, shadows, and other fancy formatting to the shape.

• To more effectively format a shape, click the Launcher in the lower right corner of the Shape Styles group. Use the Format Shape pane to manipulate settings for any selected shape in the document.

Sticking things into a shape

Shapes need not be clunky, colorful distractions. You can use a shape to hold text or a picture, which makes them one of the more flexible graphical goobers to add to a document.

To slip a smidgen of text into a shape, right-click the shape and choose the Add Text command. The insertion pointer appears within the shape. Type and format the text.

To place a picture into a shape, select the shape. Click the Drawing Tools Format tab. Click the Shape Fill button and choose the Picture menu item. Use the Insert Pictures window to hunt down an image to frame inside the shape.

• Yes, it’s possible to have both a picture and text inside a shape.
• To further deal with text in a shape, click the shape and then click the Drawing Tools Format tab on the Ribbon. The Text group contains buttons to manipulate the shape’s text.
• To remove text from a shape, select and delete the text.
• To remove a picture, select a solid color from the Shape Fill menu.
• Also see Chapter 23 for information on text boxes, which are similar to shapes with text inserted.

Using WordArt

Perhaps the most overused graphic that’s stuck into any Word document is WordArt. This feature is almost too popular. If you haven’t used it yourself, you’ve probably seen it in a thousand documents, fliers, and international treaties. Here’s how it works:

1. Click the Insert tab.

2. In the Text group, click the WordArt button to display the WordArt menu.

   The Word Art button is shown in the margin.

3. Choose a style from the WordArt gallery.

   A WordArt graphic placeholder appears in the document.

4. Type the (short and sweet) text that you want WordArt-ified.

Use the Word Art Styles group on the Drawing Tools Format tab to customize WordArt’s appearance. If you don’t see the Drawing Tools Format tab, first click the WordArt graphic.

Wrapping text around an image

For smaller images, or images that otherwise break up a document in an inelegant manner, choose one of the text-wrapping layout options. Heed these steps:

1. Click to select the image.

   A selected image appears with eight handles, as shown earlier, in Figure 22-1.

2. Click the Layout Options button.

   Word features four text-wrapping options, found in the With Text Wrapping area of the Layout Options menu. These options are Square, Tight, Through, and Top and Bottom, described in Table 22-1.

3. Choose a text-wrapping option.

Examine the image to see how text wraps around. If you’re unpleased, repeat these steps and choose another layout option in Step 3.

To remove text wrapping, choose the Inline option from Step 3.

Floating an image

When you want an image to be placed in your document independently of the text, you float the image. The image can float in front of the text, like some little kid pasted a sticker on the page, or float behind the text, as if the image were part of the paper.

To float an image, select it and then click the Layout Options button, as shown in the margin. Choose Behind Text or In Front of Text. Refer to Table 22-1 for the appropriate icons.

After choosing either Behind Text or In Front of Text, you see the image released from the confines of the text. The image floats freely, either behind or in front of the text.

Keeping an image with text

Graphics and images in Word belong to a specific paragraph in the text. It’s as if the image is linked or anchored to a specific paragraph, which helps keep the document’s graphics associated with the tidbit of text that references them.

To see which paragraph belongs to an image, click to select the image. Then look for the Anchor icon, shown in the margin, next to a paragraph of text. To change paragraphs, drag this icon to another paragraph — hopefully, one that references the image. That way, if the paragraph moves to another page, the image moves with it.

To keep an image pasted to the same spot on a page, select the image and then click the Layout Options button. Choose the setting Fix Position on Page. The image becomes stuck on the page at a specific location regardless of how the text flows around it.

Resizing an image

To make an image larger or smaller, heed these steps:

1. Select the image.

   Click the image and it grows handles, as shown earlier, in Figure 22-1.

2. Drag one of the image's four corner handles inward or outward to make the image smaller or larger, respectively.

   If you hold down the Shift key as you drag, the image is proportionally resized.

On the Picture Tools Format tab, in the Size group, you can use the Height and Width controls to nudge the image size vertically or horizontally or to type specific values for the image’s size.

Cropping an image

In graphics lingo, cropping works like taking a pair of scissors to the image: You make the image smaller, but by doing so, you eliminate some content, just as an angry, sullen teen would use shears to remove his cheating scumbag former girlfriend from a prom picture. Figure 22-2 shows an example.

To crop an image in a document, put away those shears and obey these directions:

1. Click the image once to select it.

   The Picture Tools Format tab appears on the Ribbon.

2. On the Picture Tools Format tab, in the Size group, click the Crop button.

   The button is shown in the margin. After you choose this command, the image grows eight thick crop handles.

3. Drag one of the crop handles in or out to discard a portion of the image.

4. Press the Enter key to crop the image.

   The portion of the image not contained within the crop handles is eliminated.

I use the edge (left, right, top, or bottom) handles to crop. The corner handles never crop quite the way I want them to.

Rotating an image

You have two handy ways to rotate an image, neither of which involves turning the computer’s monitor or craning your neck to the point of chiropractic necessity.

To freely rotate an image, use the mouse to grab the rotation handle at the top of the image. (Refer to Figure 22-1.) Drag the mouse to orient the image to any angle.

For more precise rotation, on the Picture Tools Format tab in the Arrange group, click the Rotate command button. From its menu, you can choose to rotate the image 90 degrees to the left or right or to flip the image horizontally or vertically.

Changing an image’s appearance

To manipulate a selected image, click the Picture Tools Format tab and use the tools in the Adjust group. Specifically, use these tools: Corrections, Color, and Artistic Effects. As a bonus, each tool’s button shows a menu full of options previewing how the image will be affected. To make the change, choose an option from the appropriate button’s menu. Here are some suggestions:

• Brightness and contrast settings are made from the Corrections button menu.
• To wash out a picture you placed behind the text, click the Color button and choose the Washout color from the Recolor area.
• To convert a color image to monochrome (black and white), click the Color button and choose the first item in the menu, Saturation 0%.
• A slew of interesting, artistic brushstrokes and other effects are found on the aptly named Artistic Effects button menu.

Moving an image hither and thither

To relocate an image to a better spot, point the mouse at the image. The mouse pointer changes to a 4-way arrow, similar to what’s shown in the margin. When you see this mouse pointer, drag the image nigh and yon.

• Point the mouse at the center of the image to drag. If you accidentally point at one of the image’s handles, you resize the image.

• An image’s layout options determine where and how you can move it. When an image floats behind the text, you may need to open up a spot in the text so that you can grab the image. To do so, position the mouse pointer by or on the same line as the image, and then whack the Enter key a few times. After moving the image, delete the extra blank paragraphs you created when you pressed the Enter key.

Aligning graphics

Image alignment is necessary to keep two or more graphical objects looking neat and tidy on the page. Especially when the images use a floating or wrapped layout, you want to ensure that they line up by the top edges, side to side, or centered.

To align graphics, follow these steps:

1. Click the first image to select it.
2. Hold down the Shift key and click the rest of the images.

3. On the Picture Tools Format tab, in the Arrange group, click the Align Object button.

   The button is shown in the margin. Click that button to display a menu of alignment choices.

4. Choose an alignment command.

   For example, choose Align Top to ensure that the top edge of both pictures will be aligned on the page.

If you’d rather eyeball the arrangement, activate Grid: Click the Align Object button and choose View Gridlines from the menu. Instantly, the page looks like it’s a sheet of graph paper. Use the grid to help position multiple images. Choose the View Gridlines command again to hide the grid.

The Distribute commands on the Align Object menu help you organize multiple images evenly across a page. For example, if you have three images left-to-right and you want to space them evenly, first align the images by choosing Align Middle. Then choose Distribute Horizontally to evenly space the images.

Shuffling images front or back

Graphics are plunked down on a page one atop the other. This arrangement is difficult to notice unless two images overlap, as shown in Figure 22-3. To change the order and shuffle images in front of or behind each other, click the Picture Tools Format tab, and in the Arrange group, use the Bring Forward or Send Backward commands.

To move one image in front of another, first click that image. Choose Bring Forward ⇒   Bring Forward to shuffle that image forward one position. To bring the image in front of all other images, choose Bring Forward ⇒   Bring to Front.

Likewise, use the Send Backward ⇒   Send Backward or Send Backward ⇒   Send to Back commands to shuffle an image to the background.

Grouping images

When you use smaller shapes to cobble together a complex image, use the Group command to keep those items together. That way, you can move them as a single unit, copy and paste them, and apply image effects to the entire group.

To group two or more graphical objects in a document, select the images: Click the first one, and then press and hold the Shift key as you click other images. When the group is selected, on the Picture Tools Format tab, in the Arrange Group, click the Group button and choose the Group command. The images are then treated as a unit, such as the palm tree shown earlier, in Figure 22-3, which is a collection of individual shapes.

To ungroup, click the grouped images and then choose the Ungroup command from the Group menu.