The Problem:

Whenever I paste in a bitmap graphic (e.g., a GIF or JPEG), Word decides for itself what size the image should be in my document. I would like for it to paste in the image at its natural size and then let me scale it if necessary. Lots of images only look good at their natural sizes, so I don't want Word messing around with the dimensions.

The Solution:

Word is probably just trying to make sure that the picture fits within the margins or page size you're using. To force Word to display the picture at its full size, right-click the picture, choose Format Picture, click the Size tab, and set the Height and Width spinners to 100%.

The Problem:

I have trouble making pictures fit into my documents. There are so many steps for inserting pictures, with hidden formatting issues. How do I put a picture where I want it without messing up the entire document? Some pictures have even just disappeared!

The Solution:

Inserting a picture in a document shouldn't be too much of a chore: choose Insert Picture From File and take it from there. Here are the six key points about positioning pictures:

• Word can put pictures either in line with the text or in the drawing layer (discussed in the next bulleted paragraph). A picture that's in line with the text moves the text around it. You can specify whether a picture is in line or not by right-clicking it, choosing Format Picture, clicking the Layout tab, and choosing "In line with text," "Square," or "Tight" to put the picture in line or "Behind text" or "In front of text" to put the picture in the drawing layer.

• The drawing layer is inaccurately named. It's actually a stack of sublayers, so you can put one picture or other graphical object on top of another. This can be useful for creating visual effects, but it can also explain why pictures sometimes disappearsomething else is on top of them and blocking the view. You can rearrange the layers of objects by right-clicking a visible object and choosing the appropriate command from the Order submenufor example, Send Backward or Bring in Front of Text.

• The drawing layer extends both in front of and behind the text layer, so you can put graphics behind the text or in front of it if you want.

• Pictures can be positioned either relative to a text object (for example, a paragraph) or relative to the page. To specify precise positioning, click the Advanced button on the Layout tab of the Format Picture dialog box and work on the Picture Position tab.

• The easiest way to resize a picture is by clicking it in the document and then dragging its sizing handles. For precise sizing, use the Size tab of the Format Picture dialog box.

• The basic way of putting a picture into a document is to insert it. This makes Word store all the picture information, so if you send the document to somebody else, the picture will be in the document. This is handy, but it increases the document's size. To keep down the size of a document (especially one that contains many pictures), you can link the picture instead of inserting it. The document then stores only a link to the picture and reads the picture in from the picture file. If the picture file is moved, or if you send the document to someone who can't access the picture file, the picture doesn't appear. Word also offers a hybrid option: insert the picture and link it back to its source. Word then uses the linked picture when it's available, which is useful for making the document show the latest picture available, and falls back on the inserted picture when the link is not available. To insert (or insert and link) a picture, click the arrow by the Insert button and choose the appropriate command from the pop-up menu.

The Problem:

The lads in the Sales department put together a nice brochure, complete with graphics they'd borrowed from the manufacturer's web site. They cropped the graphics in Word so that the manufacturer's name was hidden. But when the VP accidentally reset one of the graphics on his copy of the brochure, the manufacturer's name popped up, and the trouble started.

The Solution:

The fix is simple enough: don't crop graphics in Word! If you need to make sure that a part of a graphic isn't visible in your document, crop the graphic before putting it into Word. Word's "cropping" just hides the specified amount at the edge of the picture.

Any graphics application worth having can crop pictures. (Even Paint, which is arguably barely worth having, can do rudimentary cropping: choose Image Attributes and enter smaller measurements to crop parts of the south and east edges off a graphic.) The freeware IrfanView (http://www.irfanview.com) offers good cropping, along with a wealth of other features.

The Problem:

When I click the icon to create a text box in the Mac version of Word, I get a nice, discreet box that I can resize as needed. But when I ask Word XP for a text box, it creates a half-page-sized box that takes over the document, and I have to spend a fair amount of time resizing the box and reformatting the text to get everything under control.

The Solution:

Welcome to the Drawing Canvas, Word 2003 and Word XP's tool for helping you put together drawings consisting of AutoShapes. Word 2000 doesn't offer this annoyanceand, as you've discovered, neither do Word X and Word 2004 for the Mac.

To turn off the Drawing Canvas, choose Tools Options, click the General tab, and uncheck the "Automatically create drawing canvas when inserting AutoShapes" box. You should then get a more manageable text box when you click the Text Box button on the Drawing toolbar.

The Problem:

When manipulating text in a table cell in Word, I can only rotate it 90 degrees one way or the other. In WordPerfect, I can rotate text 90, 180, 270, or 360 degrees. Obviously, I don't generally want to rotate 360 degrees, but it's helpful to have the 180-degree option.

The Solution:

As you say, the Format Text Direction command is limited to producing vertical text (either a 90-degree rotation or a 270-degree rotation)and it works only for table cells.

If this isn't sufficient, what you need to do is create a graphic that contains the text you want to rotate. Create the text in Word, and then use a utility such as IrfanView (http://www.irfanview.com) to capture a graphic of the text and crop it down to the section you want. Insert the graphic, position it in front of or behind the text, and rotate it to the angle you want (see Figure 4-13).

Figure 4-13. For upside-down text, such as the answers to riddles or "Fold this sheet here" instructions, you need to use a graphic showing the text you want.

The Problem:

I'm trying to put a picture in my document with the text wrapping around it. But every time I insert the picture, Word puts it in line with the text.

The Solution:

The immediate fix for this picture is to right-click it, choose Format Picture, click the Layout tab, and select the "In front of text" option. You can specify the horizontal alignment by clicking the Advanced button and choosing the appropriate positioning and wrapping settings in the Advanced Layout dialog box. Alternatively, drag the graphic to the desired position.

If you want to make Word always place pictures in a different way than in line with the text, choose Tools Options, click the Edit tab, and choose the appropriate option (for example, "Behind text") in the "Insert/paste pictures as" drop-down list. Word 2000 doesn't offer this option.

The Problem:

Why is there a difference between page view and print view as far as graphics are concerned? I want to see all the graphics all the time, in any view.

The Solution:

It sounds as though you've got Word's "Picture placeholders" option turned on. (The usual reason for turning on picture placeholders is to make the document scroll faster.) When this option is on, Print Layout view displays only placeholdersempty rectanglesto indicate where pictures appear. This option doesn't apply to Print Preview, so when you switch to Print Preview, your pictures appear.

To turn off placeholders, choose Tools Options, click the View tab, and uncheck the "Picture placeholders" box. Word will then display all pictures in every view.

The Problem:

I deleted some text in a documentand Word deleted an unrelated graphic along with the text.

The Solution:

What's happened is that the text you deleted included the object anchor for the graphic. The object anchor is a logical connector that links a floating graphic (or other floating object) to the text of the document.

Undo the deletion at once by pressing Ctrl+Z or choosing Edit Undo. Then turn on the display of object anchors so that you can see where objects are anchored: choose Tools Options, click the View tab, check the "Object anchors" box, and click the OK button. Select the graphic and check where the anchor is (see Figure 4-14) before deleting adjacent text.

Figure 4-14. Object anchors add to the clutter in a document window, but they can help you avoid accidentally deleting graphics and other objects.