Integrating Images and External Materials
Integrating or inserting pictures in your document is fun and it improves the impression of your document. A common use of inserting a picture on a document is when you are creating a resumé. Kinds of Materials There are various kinds of materials Microsoft® Word is capable of integrating to make your document richer, more impressive, and more informative. Pictures – generally, these are electronic or digital pictures or photographs you have saved in 1. Pictures – any local storage device. There are three commonly used types of picture files. You can identify them by the extension on their file fil e names. JPG – this is pronounced as “jay-peg,” and is the short form for .jpeg or file extension a. JPG – for the Joint Photographic Experts Group picture file. Like all the rest of the image file extensions, it identifies the kind of data compression process that is uses to make it more compatible and portable through the Internet. This type of image file can support 16.7 million colors that’s why it is suitable for use when working with full color photographic images. Unfortunately, it does not support transparency. But if you are looking for the best quality image to integrate with your document, then this is the image file type for you . GIF – file extension for the Graphics Interchange Format image file. This type of image b. GIF – file is capable of displaying transparencies. Therefore, it is good for blending with other materials or elements in your document. It is also capable of displaying simple animation. It can only support up to 256 colors that is why .GIF is much better for logos, drawings, small text, black and white images, or low-resolution files. PNG – this is pronounced as “ping.” It stands for Portable Network Graphics that was c. PNG – built around the capabilities of .GIF. Its development was basically for the purpose of transporting images on the internet at faster rates. It is also good with transparencies but unlike .GIFs, it does not support animation but it can display up to about 16 million colors. .PNG allows the control of the transparency level or opacity of images. Art – this is generally a .GIF type; line art drawings or images used as generic 2. Clip Art – representation for ideas and objects that you might want to integrate in your document. Microsoft® Word has a library of clip arts that is built in or can be downloaded and used freely. There are still other clip arts that you can either purchase or freely download and use that come from third-part providers. Shapes – these are printable objects or materials that you can integrate in your document to 3. Shapes – enhance its appearance to allow you to have some tools to use for composing and representing ideas or messages. If you are designing the layout for a poster or other graphic graphi c material for advertising, you might find this useful. Art – generally, these are predefined sets of different shapes grouped together to 4. Smart Art – form ideas that are organizational or structural in nature. If you want to graphically represent
an organization, process, relationships, or flow for infographic documents, then y ou will find this easy and handy to use. 5. Chart – another type of material that you can integrate with your Word document that allows you to represent data characteristics and trends. This is quite useful when you are preparing reports that correlate and present data in a graphical manner. You can create charts that can be in your document either directly i n Microsoft® Word or imported from external files like Microsoft® Excel. 6. Screenshot – sometimes, creating reports or manuals for training or procedures will require the integration of a more realistic image of what you are discussing on your report or manual. Nothing can get you more realistic image than a screenshot. Microsoft® Word even provides a snipping tool for your screen shots so you can select and display only the part that you exactly like to capture on your screen. Image Placement
1. In Line with Text – this setting is usually used when you need to place your image at t he beginning of the paragraph. 2. Square – this setting allows the image you inserted to be placed anywhere within the paragraph with the text going around the image in a square pattern like a frame. 3. Tight – this setting can mostly achieved if you are using an image that supports transparency like a .GIF or .PNG file. 4. Through – this setting allows the text on your document to flow even tighter, taking the contours and shape of the image. Again, this can be best used with a .GIF or .PNG type of image. 5. Top and Bottom – this setting pushes the texts away vertically to the top and/or the bottom of the image so that the image occupies a whole text line on its own as in the example. 6. Behind Text – this allows your image to be dragged and placed anywhere on your document but with the all texts floating in front of it. It effectively makes your image look like a background. 7. In Front of Text – as it suggests, this setting allows your image to be placed right on top of the text as if your image was dropped right on it.
The steps on inserting images to a Word document: 1. Open the Sample Letter.docx from your Desktop. 2. Place your insertion point or cursor to where you want the image or picture to appear. Just right at the very beginning of the first paragraph will do. 3. Go to the Illustrations group under the Insert tab on the ribbon or menu. 4. Click on Picture ―→ Insert Picture from File. 5. The Insert Picture dialog box will pop up almost similar to your file explorer window. Navigate to your Desktop and click on the Solar.jpg file. 6. Click the Insert button to insert a copy of the Solar.jpg picture on your document.
7. Right-click on the image then click on the Wrap Text sub-menu. On the fly out, click on the Square option. Remember that this setting will flow around your image like a rectangular frame. 8. Drag your image to the desired location on the document so that your document. 9. Repeat steps 2 through 6. Only this time, place the insertion point at the very end of the document and insert the Joe.png image. This is actually the digital signature of our fictional character, Joe Green. 10. Again, right-click on the image then click on the Wrap Text sub-menu. This time, on the fly out, click on the Behind Text option. This should allow you to place the signature image arbitrarily along the printed name on the document, so it would look exactly like a real signature. We chose this option because our signature image, in this example, does not have transparent background. If it were, setting it In front of Text would be a better option. 11. Now we need to work on the chart. This will require us to work with the wizard to set up the parameters of our chart. On your document, place your insertion point or cursor on the position where you want the chart to appear. 12. In the Illustrations group under the Insert tab, click on Chart. This will bring up the Insert Chart dialog box. 13. On the right pane, inside the Insert Chart dialog box, scroll down to the Pie row, and select Exploded Pie in 3D. 14. An excel worksheet will pop up showing the default data that Microsoft® Word uses for the chart. For the sake of our example, modify the data on the worksheet so that the heading “Sales” will read “Volume” and the labels 1st to 4th QTR will read “Europe,” “America,” “Middle East,” and “Asia,” respectively. 15. Drag the chart’s corner handle to suitable size. 16. Click on the chart’s Text Wrap option and select Top and Bottom. 17. Drag the chart to the center of the page in between the second and third paragraph of your document. 18. Save your document.
