Adding an image or other illustration objects to a Word file is simple, but placing those things and getting them to remain where you want them can be discouraging. Fortunately Word has the tools to make this more manageable if you understand where to look. Let’s take a quick trip.

A Quick Word About Text Wrapping

Before we get to those placing tools, though, you must know a bit about text wrapping. By default, when you insert images and other illustration items into your document, Word applies one of 2 forms of text wrapping: “in line with text” (for images and most other illustration items) or “in front of text” (for shapes and 3D models).

When you set an item’s text covering to be in line with text, Word deals with the things in question as a text character. If you type or paste text before or after the things, it moves along the line and down the page much like any other text character. When you set a things’s text wrapping to be in front of the text, the things appears on top of any text, and you can move it to any position you want.

Comprehending how to cover text around objects is a fundamental part of getting items positioned the way you want, so if you’re not already acquainted with how it works, we extremely suggest you read our guide on the subject.

In this post, we’re using a things for which we’ve set the text covering to “square.” The positioning tools we’ll be talking about use to whatever type of text covering you’re using, however the specific placing you’re able to carry out will depend on what text wrapping you’ve picked.

Opening and Using the Position Menu

With that out of the method, let’s discuss those placing tools.

In your document, select the item with which you want to work, switch to the “Layout” menu, and after that click the “Position” button. That button likewise appears on the “Format” menu of the Ribbon and works the same method.

The Position drop-down menu is divided into two sections: “In Line With Text” and “With Text Wrapping.”

The “In line with text” section just provides the single default choice, and here’s what that looks like.

The nine choices in the “With Text Wrapping” section let you select a fixed position on the page for your item, varying from the leading left corner to bottom right corner. Here’s our image with the “middle top” choice picked.

Now that we’ve picked a position our image will stay there no matter how the text changes. You can delete text from that paragraph, rearrange paragraphs, include new text, or whatever else you require to do and that image will remain at the position you picked.

One thing to be cautious with, however, is that selecting the entire paragraph to which the object is anchored will generally pick the object. If you select and then erase that paragraph, you’ll erase that object, too. You can see that an object is chosen since it handles a gray color and border.

If you want to erase the paragraph without erasing the item, you can select the whole paragraph and after that Ctrl-click the object to deselect it. Deleting the paragraph will then leave the item behind.

You can likewise drag an object to a brand-new place, and it will remain repaired in that new area.

Fine Tuning and Other Options for Precise Positioning

These fundamental presets work well for simple positioning, and you can drag your challenge a specific location if you desire. However what if you want to position two images a set quantity apart, or keep your image a particular range from the margins? Word supplies a palette of alternatives you can utilize to fine-tune an object’s position.

Select your item, head back to Layout > > Position, and this time click the “More Layout Options” command.

The Layout window should open with the “Position” tab chosen.

Here you can customize to your heart’s content. Let’s take a look, beginning with the Alignment alternatives. These 2 choices (one for horizontal and one for vertical alignment) control how the object is lined up in relation to parts of the file. We set our image to the middle top of the page previously, and you can see that choice reflected in the image below with the horizontal positioning set to “focused” and the vertical positioning set to “top”– both measurements relative to the margin of the page.

If you desire those alignments determined relative to something aside from the page margin, you can pick various options from the drop-down menus to the right of each option.

In the “Horizontal” section, you’ll likewise see a “Book layout” choice, which is used when your document remains in a left page/right page format for printing and binding. The options here are rather basic. You can position your things relative to either the within or outside of the margin or page. These alternatives work in tandem with the Layout > > Margin alternatives, especially the “Mirrored” choice.

Completing the set are “Absolute position” and “Relative position” in both the “Horizontal” and “Vertical” sections. These choices provide you much finer control over the particular position of a things. Choosing an “Absolute position” implies your object will remain in that exact position no matter what other format or text you might change. A “Relative position” means your things will be positioned relative to a part of the file’s structure so if that part of the document relocations, your image moves with it and stays in the very same relative position. This is useful when you desire your image to always be a particular range away from a margin, for instance, even if you change the margin later on.

Overlapping Your Images

Below the “Horizontal” and “Vertical” areas in the Layout window, you’ll likewise find a couple of other alternatives. Let’s begin with the “Allow overlap” choice since that’s quite basic and likewise extremely helpful.

If you’ve got more than one things in your file and you want some to be able to overlap with others, you need to– you guessed it– allow the “Allow overlap” alternative. This is a “entire file” setting, which indicates it affects every things in the file, not just the things that you had actually selected when you turned the setting on. This makes a great deal of sense if you consider it, since why would you ever turn this on for one image however no others? Like all positioning options, “Allow overlap” just uses to images which aren’t using the “In line with text” wrapping design. As soon as you’ve turned it on you can drag your images around to overlap how you want.

If you want to change which image remains in front of the other, switch to the “Layout” (or “Format”) tab and use the “Bring Forward” and “Send Backward” choices to layer the images the way you desire.

Understanding the “Lock Anchor” and “Move Object With Text” Options

The various horizontal and vertical alignment alternatives (and the “Allow Overlap”) are quite straightforward, particularly after you’ve had fun with them a bit and seen the result they have on positioning.

The “Move Object With Text” and “Lock anchor” choices, on the other hand, typically trigger some confusion, so we’ll take a bit more time to explain how they work.

Things first: When you begin experimenting with these two alternatives, you might notice that not much happens no matter which you choose. That’s due to the fact that these options only affect items that don’t have a fixed position. When you changed your image from “In line with text” to a different text covering design, a setting was allowed that you most likely missed out on unless you clearly looked for it. This setting is called “Fix Position on Page,” and you can find it on the Layout (or Format) > > Wrap Text menu.

When you have the “Fix Position On Page” choice switched on, the “Move object with text” and “Lock anchor” options because Layout window do not do anything. Those options just work if the image is permitted to move. To use them, you have to switch on the “Move With Text” option instead.

And that’s where the confusion generally sets in. The “Move With Text” option on the Wrap Text menu is not the same as the “Move Object With Text” choice in the design window.

So, go on and allow the “Move With Text” choice on the Wrap Text menu and then go back to the Layout window.

Let’s begin with the “Move Object With Text” option. This setting figures out whether the item will move with the paragraph to which it’s anchored. If this setting is switched on, you can add or delete paragraphs above the one containing your things and the item moves along with its own paragraph.

A quick example will reveal this in action. We’ll begin with an image in the text, set to the “Square” text wrapping alternative and the “middle top” position.

When “Move item with text” is turned on, the image stays with the initial paragraph when we add another paragraph above.

However when “Move object with text” is shut off, the image remains where it is on the page when we include another paragraph above.

This brings us to the way that Word marks an object as coming from a specific paragraph– how it knows to move the item with the paragraph when “Move item with text” is turned on. Word does this by utilizing an “anchor.” You can see the anchor when you choose an image.

Keep in mind: If you can’t see the anchor then go to File > > Options > Display and make sure “Object anchors” is switched on.

By default, the anchor is connected to the paragraph you into which you place the things, but when you move the challenge another paragraph, the anchor moves with it. Let’s say you have 2 paragraphs: paragraph one and paragraph 2. If your object is in paragraph one and “Move item with text” is switched on, your image will move along with paragraph one. If you drag your object into paragraph 2, the anchor ends up being connected to paragraph 2, and after that the item will move along with paragraph 2.

What if you wanted your things to remain in the exact same position on a page, however constantly be on the page with its anchor paragraph?

This is where the “Lock anchor” setting is available in. When you switch on “Lock Anchor,” you can then move your image to any position on the very same page as the anchor paragraph, and the item will stay in that position. However, if you move the anchor paragraph to another page, the item will likewise move to that page, however remain in the very same relative position on the page.

So, for example, if you had your things in the center top of the page and you moved the anchor paragraph to another page, the item would likewise move to the very same page where you moved the anchor paragraph, however stay on top center of that brand-new page.

That covers image positioning in all its glory, so next time someone dismisses Word as simply a glorified typewriter that can’t deal with images correctly, you’ll know that they’re wrong. So, so incorrect.

Adding an image or other illustration items to a Word document is simple, but positioning those objects and getting them to stay where you desire them can be discouraging. When you set a things’s text covering to be in line with text, Word treats the object in concern as a text character. If you desire to delete the paragraph without deleting the things, you can pick the whole paragraph and then Ctrl-click the object to deselect it. By default, the anchor is connected to the paragraph you into which you insert the things, however when you move the object to another paragraph, the anchor moves with it. If your object is in paragraph one and “Move item with text” is changed on, your image will move along with paragraph one.