Multimedia Toolbox

Using Multimedia Tools for Education Working with Images in Word Ruth Dahl, Centre for Innovation in Teaching and Learning Its been said that a picture it is worth a thousand words. Often its desirable to add images or clipart to a text document to help emphasize a point, describe a process or maybe just add visual interest. There are many types of images that can be used in a Word document - Microsoft clip art, jpegs, gifs, and bmps, being the most common. Microsoft Word, as well as PowerPoint and Excel contain tools to edit and manipulate images. These tools allow the user greater control over the look and layout of images within the document. Understanding How Images are Handled Word documents are actually made up of layers. The main layer is the text layer. Graphic/drawing objects are contained in the drawing layer. There is only one drawing layer, but each graphic object is independently positioned on this layer, from front to back. Normally, the text layer is the bottom layer, with graphics layer in front of it, but a drawing object can be positioned behind text. Try this start the Word application and type a few paragraphs of text. Now from the Insert menu, select Picture > Clip Art Choose a piece of clip art from the gallery by clicking on it and drag it to your document. Notice the clip art has white selection boxes around it. See below. Notice the white selection boxes. This is important. This means that the clip art has been placed on the drawing layer, not on the text layer. To demonstrate this concept, click on the clip art and drag it any where on your document. Notice it is in front or on top of the text. When inserting images that arent clip art, the image is inserted onto the text layer at the cursor position. Try inserting an image into your document. From the Insert menu, select Picture > From File Browse through your hard drive and find a jpeg, gif, or bmp file. Click the Insert button. It should now be in your document. Click on it (to select it) and notice it has black selection boxes around it. See below. Notice the black selection boxes. This means this image has been inserted into the text layer. Try to move the image around. Its difficult if not impossible. Although its an image, it behaves like text. To move it, one must place the cursor in front of it and hit the space bar or tab key to move it along the line, or above it and hit the enter key to move it down a line. Like text, its alignment on the page can be changed select it and click the left, right, or center alignment button on the toolbar.

Switching Layers The image in the above example is on the text layer, not the graphic layer. To move the image to the graphic layer is simple. Select the image. From the Picture toolbar, select the Text Wrapping button. When you select an image or graphic, the Picture toolbar appears. If it is not visible, under the View menu, select Toolbars> and make sure Picture is selected. The picture toolbar may also be at the top, incorporated into the main Word toolbar. Selecting any one of the text wrapping options automatically places the image onto the graphic layer. Try applying the various text wrapping options to the image and drag the image around the page to see what happens. Using text wrapping options allows interaction between the text layer and the graphic layer. These text wrapping options also apply to clip art. The clip art you imported earlier in this exercise was on top of the text. Notice one of the text wrapping options is behind text. By default, clipart is inserted in front of text but it can be moved behind text with this text wrapping option. Editing Images Images can be edited or manipulated to some extent within Word. This is done through the Picture toolbar. To edit any image, it must first be selected. The Picture Toolbar The Insert Picture button opens up a dialog box with a directory listing of all files on the hard drive. Choose an image and click Insert. The Image Control button will convert images or clip art a grayscale image, a black and white image or a watermark. The Automatic option converts the image back to its original state.

The More Contrast and Less Contrast buttons increase/decrease image contrast. Click on these buttons as many times as necessary until the desired contrast level is reached. The More Brightness and Less Brightness buttons increase/decrease image brightness. Click on these buttons as many times as necessary until desired level of brightness/contrast is achieved.

The Crop button will remove unwanted portions off the top/bottom and sides of images. Click the Crop button. Click on one of the selection boxes and start dragging. Release the mouse button when desired portion has been cropped out. To crop one side, click and drag on a side selection box. To crop top and side together, click and drag a corner selection box. Click and drag corner selection box to crop off from top and side.

Click and drag on side selection to crop off side of image.

The Line Style button will create a rectangular line border around the image or clipart. The Text Wrapping button controls the flow of text around an image or clipart. See Switching Layers section above. The Format Picture button brings up the Format Picture dialog box. Many of the options available on the Picture toolbar can be accessed conveniently in this one dialog box. The Format Picture Dialog Box Colors and Lines options Controls line Style and Fill Color Size options Controls size and scale Layout options Controls text wrapping and image alignment Picture options Controls cropping, brightness, contrast, and image control

The Set Transparent Color button allows the user to click on a specific color within the image to make it transparent. It only works with images (jpeg, bmp, gif) and not clip art. By clicking on the gray portion of this gif image, it is made transparent i.e., the background of the page shows through.

The Reset Picture button resets the picture back to its original state when it was first inserted. All changes made to the image are undone. If the image size has been changed, it must be reset in the Format Picture Dialog Box under the Size option, click the Reset button and then click OK. Aligning Images and Graphics There are times when it is necessary to align multiple images within a document. Note, these images should all be on the drawing layer. Instead of manually adjusting them, they can be adjusted automatically using the Draw menu. The Draw menu is usually found at the bottom of the Word interface. If the Drawing toolbar is not visible, under the View menu, select Toolbars> and make sure Drawing is selected. To adjust multiple images, shiftclick to select images. Under the Draw menu, select the appropriate alignment option. Often it is necessary to align images in two steps once to align them horizontally/vertically and once again to distribute them equidistantly either horizontally or vertically.

These clipart images have been aligned vertically and then distributed horizontally with the Relative to Page option selected. Please note, unless the Relative to Page option on the Align or Distribute menu is checked, at least two objects must be selected to make the alignment options available, and at least three objects to make the distribution options available.

Images can be moved manually as seen previously. Simply click and drag them around the document. Using the arrow keys on the keyboard, images can be moved in 1 pixel increments either up/down/left/right. As a guide, a grid can be turned on to aid in image placement. To turn on the grid, under the Draw menu, select Grid

The Drawing Grid dialog box appears. Select the Display gridlines on screen option to turn on the grid. The grid settings can be customized with respect to horizontal and vertical spacing. To turn the grid off, open the Drawing Grid box again and deselect display gridlines option.

Using the Picture and Drawing toolbars in Word allows the user greater control over the look and layout of inserted images. Start using these built in tools to improve the look of your documents.