Here’s a pro tip: if the blue dots on spaces annoy you, they can be disabled in Word’s Preferences under View. Click on the “backwards P” (technically called a “pilcrow”) to reveal non-printing characters. Like anchors, these symbols are hidden by default, but they’re essential when working with layouts in Word. To accomplish that, we need to turn on non-printing characters, commonly known as “backwards P” (¶). As with anchors, we need to see information about how our document is constructed. Navigate to Word Preferences > Edit > Editing Options, and change the drop-down next to I nsert/paste pictures as: to Square.ģ. We can fix that by changing our default text wrapping. By default, images are placed in-line with text, but that’s rarely what you actually want. Text wrapping also causes no end of trouble. If it’s already checked, leave it that way.Ģ. To reveal anchor icons, navigate to Word Preferences > View, and in the Show in Documents of the window, check the box next to Object anchors. Without anchors, you’ll be mystified by nonsensical imagine movements. Anchor points tell you where your image is located in terms of document construction. First, we must make anchor points visible. Let’s get those settings fixed before we drop a single image in our document.ġ. That immediately gets people off on the wrong foot, and they start fidgeting with settings they don’t understand, hoping the image will miraculously snap into place. If you don’t change default settings, images in Microsoft Word will be treated like giant letters. The first think you need to learn is how Word actually deals with images. Much like formatting text properly in Word, if you learn the basic functionality of images in Microsoft Word, you can place images in Word with no frustration or angst. They write off Word as being “bad with pictures” and mentally consign it to the eternal graveyard of disappointing software.īut this is unjust! Despite its reputation, Word actually has excellent image management tools. The tools for moving images are unintuitive and hard to find, so folks typically never get past their first disastrous brush with image placement. It’s just that it’s entirely Microsoft’s fault. If you ask Microsoft, they’ll say it’s because people don’t understand how Word works with images. But in order to use images in Microsoft Word of macOS without pulling your hair out, you need to know how to use some advanced options that aren’t as obvious or easy to use as they should be.

While Word’s image placement might seem impenetrable and cryptic, there are in fact rules.

Reveal codes in word on mac