Working with Pictures
By the Syncfusion DevTutorials team · Last updated
Insert, resize, crop, and position pictures, then build a one-page fact sheet in the Chapter 4 project.
A good picture can explain in a second what takes a paragraph to describe. Photos, logos, diagrams, and charts make documents more interesting and easier to understand. In this lesson, you'll insert pictures, resize and crop them, and place them exactly where you want them. At the end, you'll put everything from Chapters 1 to 4 together in your first chapter project.
Open the Word sandbox and follow along. You'll need a picture to practice with. Use any photo on your computer, or download this one:
Download the practice picture
Insert pictures
The first step is getting a picture into your document:
- Click where the picture should go. Pictures are placed at the cursor, just like text.
- On the Insert tab, click Image (in Microsoft Word, Pictures > This Device).
- Find the picture on your computer and click Open.
Word supports common picture types such as .jpg, .png, .gif, and .bmp.
Put the cursor on an empty line before inserting a picture. Then the picture gets a paragraph of its own, which makes it much easier to center and to keep away from your text.
Resize pictures
Pictures from a phone or camera are often huge, much wider than the page. To resize one:
- Click the picture. Small square handles appear on its corners and sides.
- Drag a corner handle inward to make it smaller, or outward to make it bigger.
Always use a corner handle. Corner handles keep the picture's shape (its aspect ratio). The handles on the sides stretch or squash it, which makes people and objects look wrong.
For an exact size, right-click the picture and open its size or picture options, then type a width. Make sure Lock aspect ratio is on, so the height changes to match.
A picture can be at most as wide as the space between the margins. On a Letter page with 1-inch margins, that's 6.5 inches (468 points).
Crop pictures
Sometimes a picture contains more than you need: a messy background, or empty space around the important part. Cropping cuts away the parts of a picture you don't want, like trimming a photo with scissors. It's useful for removing a messy background or zooming in on the important part.
In Microsoft Word:
- Click the picture.
- On the Picture Format tab, click Crop. Black crop handles appear on the edges.
- Drag a handle inward to cut away that side.
- Click outside the picture, or press Esc, to finish.
The sandbox focuses on inserting, resizing, and positioning pictures, and may not have a Crop tool. If it doesn't, crop the picture in Microsoft Word, or in your computer's photo app before you insert it. Cropping first also makes the file smaller.
Position pictures
Once a picture is the right size, the next question is where it sits on the page. By default, a picture sits in line with text: Word treats it like one very large letter on its line. That's the simplest and most reliable setting.
To center a picture: put it on its own line, click it, and press Ctrl + E (or click Center on the Home tab), just like centering text.
To let text flow around a picture, change its text wrapping. Right-click the picture and look for Wrap Text (in Microsoft Word, it's also on the Picture Format tab):
| Wrapping | What happens |
|---|---|
| In Line with Text | The picture sits on a line, like a big letter. The default. |
| Square | Text wraps around the picture's box |
| Tight | Text wraps closely around the picture's shape |
| Top and Bottom | Text stays above and below; nothing beside it |
| Behind Text / In Front of Text | The picture floats behind or over the text |
For most documents, In Line with Text plus Center is all you need. Floating pictures can jump around when you edit the text, so use wrapping only when you really want text beside a picture.
Common mistakes
Here are the most common traps, and how to fix them:
| Mistake | What happens | How to fix it |
|---|---|---|
| Dragging a side handle | The picture looks stretched or squashed | Undo, then drag a corner handle |
| Inserting a huge photo | It fills the page, or more | Drag a corner handle in until it fits between the margins |
| Trying to center with the space bar | The picture never sits exactly in the middle | Click the picture and press Ctrl + E |
| Using floating wrapping for every picture | Pictures jump when you edit the text | Switch back to In Line with Text |
| Inserting the picture in the middle of a sentence | Text is split around the picture | Put the cursor on an empty line first |
Exercise
Now it's time to work with pictures yourself.
Click New in the sandbox title bar. Type Wildlife Photo, press Enter, and stay on the new empty line. Now do each task and press Check.
Chapter project
You've now learned text formatting, page setup, tables, and pictures. Time to put Chapters 1 to 4 together. You'll turn plain text into a one-page fact sheet with a title, a picture, nicely spaced paragraphs, and a table.
Kenya wildlife fact sheet
What to remember
- Insert pictures from Insert > Image, with the cursor on an empty line.
- Resize with a corner handle to keep the picture's shape.
- Crop cuts away the parts you don't need.
- In Line with Text is the simplest position; center the picture with Ctrl + E.
- Use text wrapping only when you want text beside the picture.
- Keep pictures within the margins.
That's the end of Chapter 4. In Chapter 5, you'll design the whole document: headers, footers, page numbers, links, and styles.